


A Wretch, a Trophy, a Courtier, a Queen

by DetectiveRoboRyan



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: (fuck you i'm tagging this as lemon in 2019), Addiction, Aftercare, Class Difference, Concubines, Consent Issues, Cunnilingus, Doesn't contain any actual rape/noncon or underage just discussions of such, Drama, Explicit Consent, F/F, Falling In Love, Fluff, Kissing, Lemon, My Name is Ryan and in My Spare Time I Write Novels, Oral Sex, Panic Attacks, Past Sexual Abuse, Personal Growth, Pining, Post-Coital Cuddling, Recovery, Romance, Rough Sex, Second Timeline, Seduction, Self-Esteem Issues, Smut, Sporadic Updates, Throne Sex, Trans Lucina, Vaginal Sex, alternate universe- medieval, courting, see notes for details
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-02-22 21:14:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13175325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveRoboRyan/pseuds/DetectiveRoboRyan
Summary: For most of her life, Azura has been a concubine-- coveted for her beauty and her skill as a dancer, held up as a prize of kings, but moved from place to place with no agency of her own. To survive, she had to be passive, feel as impermanent and ephemeral as water flowing through a grate. And she's done it well, until now.As an attempt to curry favor and forge an alliance with the independent kingdom of Ylisse, Hoshido has given a gift to Ylisse's young king: Its finest concubine, none other than Azura herself. Going into it, Azura assumes that Foreseer-King Lucina is no different than any other she's been with. But she quickly finds out that Ylisse has its own way of doing things-- Lucina shows her kindness and respect, foreign sensations to Azura. Azura rejects it at first, but she can't deny the strange feelings that Lucina's gestures stir up inside of her.Before long, she finds she's accepted the King's offer to be a courtier rather than a courtesan, and all the new experiences that accompany. It seems that from there, to fall in love is only natural-- but what does Azura know about love? Updates whenever.(Contains discussion of topics such as childhood sexual abuse and addiction.)





	1. Concubine

**Author's Note:**

> in a similar vein to 'doll-dizzy,' 'tempest,' and 'cover me,' azura in this canon has not had a good life. however, i'll reiterate that i added the note about the rape/non-con and underage warnings just to be safe, since the fic does deal with the reprecussions of childhood sexual abuse. there are, however, no flashback scenes detailing it, and the acts themselves are left implied in the rough life azura's led.
> 
> wrt the sex in the fic itself: the consent the first couple of times is consensual, but it's not as consensual as it could be due to the miscommunication that gets solved later on. however, this does get addressed later on in the fic, as that's what it's about: recovery, growing past experiences that hampered growth, learning that although trauma shapes us, it is not the state that we have to live our lives in. 
> 
> anyway, that said: hope you enjoy the fic!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She gives the King a chuckle-- a low, breathy one designed to provoke reaction. “I’m often told I can give very… inspiring… performances.”_
> 
> _“Inspiring,” the King breathes. “Enticing, I would say.”_
> 
> _“Oh?” Azura replies, pulling back and arching an eyebrow. Then her lips curl into a smile. “Good.”_

The streets of Ylisstol fill with merriment the week of their Foreseer-King's twenty-fifth nameday. Vendors and entertainers and people of all types flood the cobblestoned streets and spirits run high and free like ale and wine. Among them, people bearing gifts from prospective suitors and allies alike— though both, likely, with the same goal. Ylisse is a prosperous nation, made so by Emmeryn the Wise, aunt of the current ruler. Now that the Foreseer-King is of age, many have made offers of goods in order to garner favor with Ylisse. And though the king never turns down the gifts (as that would be very poor manners) he hasn't accepted any offers from suitors or even bothered with any alliances.  
  
At least, that's what Azura's heard.  
  
Although Azura was sent to Ylisse as a gift to the king, they have yet to truly meet— though Azura knows that the Foreseer-King is a woman, not a man, who simply prefers masculine dress and titles. She has met the King's father, an aging, square-shaped man with hair a fierce shade of cobalt, and he seems kind— perhaps too kind for Azura to believe that he was once a ruler. But she cannot deny the shine he has about him; doubtless the reason they called him Chrom the Radiant.  
  
The old king called the Foreseer-King Lucina, which feels too soft a name for the daunting figure Azura has spotted lurking about the castle— and yet her family and her heralds all call her that, so it's clearly her real name. Azura can only wonder what's in store— but she won't wonder much longer.  
  
The King has called her to her private chambers— the royal chambers— and told her to let herself in. So that is what Azura does, and she runs a hand over the expensive bedspread. The royal suite is in shades of green and white and silver, much like the heraldry covering the castle and the gleaming armor of the soldiers Azura saw when Queen Mikoto's retainers escorted her through the city. Though now that she's been "gifted," she doubts she'll see much else of it.  
  
Azura wonders if she should disrobe. To be safe, she doesn't, and settles for seating herself upon the royal bed. It feels more like an altar than a bed, and she imagines lying upon it would feel less like being a woman-king's mistress and more like being sacrificed to some insane dragon god.  
  
The door opens with nary a sound. In steps the king. Azura turns, and momentarily wishes she'd had a little more time to prepare.  
  
Truth be told, the king is breathtaking— man, woman, it matters not when she stands before Azura in her red silk doublet and light trousers tucked into dark riding boots; tailored clothing that fit her imposing height exactly and accentuate what curves are there without making them distracting or tacky. Gold accents the doublet and flirts with the glimmering silver sheen of the sheathed, rarely-used traditional dagger with the House Grace seal stamped into the pommel. She has the same vibrant cobalt hair of the ex-king, though hers is trimmed in a short cut that frames her face with both feminine elegance and boyish charm. Both beautiful and handsome— Azura hadn't known anyone could truly capture that essence. And tying it all together is the polished gold diadem that rests amidst the softness of her blue hair, gleaming with quiet power and telling all who lay eyes upon it of the young King's sovereignty.  
  
Her face itself reminds Azura of a statue's, with its pointed chin and squared jaw and eyes that droop just a bit and seem distant, as if musing on important topics like poetry and mortality— though her ears, a bit big and sticking out from the sides of her head, ruin the image. Still, if anyone can pull it all together, it's the King, and she does it with grace befitting her station and then some. And she pulls it together with piercing blue eyes, one a shade lighter than the other, that seem to slice through Azura's walls with the same controlled intensity as the dagger at her waist.  
  
She stares directly at Azura. Azura feels somewhat like a cut of meat upon a chopping block.  
  
She shakes her bangs from her face with a toss of her head. Azura leans on the bed, spine curved— she's been a mistress to many, and she assumes this will be no different. And like all the others Azura has had, the King pulls off her riding boots, surveying Azura with those sharp eyes while walking around the bed.  
  
"Azura, isn't it?" the King asks.  
  
Azura's mouth is dry. She nods.  
  
"Say it for me," the King tells her. "I want to hear how it's said."  
  
"It's Azura," Azura replies.  
  
"Azura," the King repeats, correcting her accent. "I see. Queen Mikoto certainly wasn't exaggerating when she spoke of your beauty. I can only hope she wasn't exaggerating your… talents."  
  
"As can I," Azura replies.  
  
A chuckle ripples through the air from deep in the King's throat. She smooths out her doublet-- she’s wearing gloves. The white kid leather looks soft. There’s hitches in the movement of her right hand, now that Azura’s close, and two of her fingers are fused at the last joint. The clicking and scraping of the bones in that arm speak of broken, perhaps even shattered bones, healed long ago but not quite the same as they were before.  
  
“I’m told you dance,” the King hums, dropping casually onto the plush settee like she was meant to lounge. “What styles, may I ask?”  
  
Azura’s not sure what her game is, but she plays along. “I can learn most anything, given time to watch how it’s done and the right music,” she says. “It’s just something I’ve always done.” An easy way to make money, dancing. “Though, dancing to music isn’t really my specialty.”  
  
The King quirks an eyebrow. “What is, then?”  
  
Azura rises. “If you’ll allow me to show you,” she begins, slowly, carefully undoing the ties of her gown-- white trimmed in pale gold, draped rather than cinched, thin layers of fabric giving way to sheer lower down the hem and the long sleeves. It’s a beautiful piece-- nothing but the best for the prize of kings.  
  
She can see the king’s eyes flick up and down her figure, tracing it with her eyes, committing it to memory like an artist mentally sketching the image of a sunset. “Ah,” she says.  
  
Azura’s hands still. “Is this not what you want, your Majesty?” she questions. “I can start with you, if you prefer.”  
  
“No, continue,” the King tells her. “It merely took me a minute to figure out what you meant. Pay it no mind.”  
  
Azura nods. She shrugs her gown from her shoulders, leaves it in a pile on the soft fur of the rug. The King sits up, takes in all of the curves and details of Azura’s form like so many others before her, gestures with her fingers for Azura to sit with her. Azura does, perched on her knee, hand tracing the details on her red doublet.  
  
“You can touch if you like,” Azura purrs. She feels the King shiver beneath her hands-- she’s still got it. The King’s hand, still gloved, comes to rest on her waist. The leather really is soft. She kisses the King’s neck, lets her lips do the talking while she plays with the buttons. The King’s good hand comes up to join hers, undoing them one by one, until she can shuck it from her shoulders and Azura can trace her fingers along the King’s bare chest.  
  
“Lovely,” the King murmurs. Her voice vibrates across Azura’s jaw. “Is this what qualifies as dancing in Hoshido?”  
  
“There’s dancing and then there’s _dancing_ ,” Azura replies. “I happen to be skilled in both individually. Though you ought to see me when they intersect.” She gives the King a chuckle-- a low, breathy one designed to provoke reaction. “I’m often told I can give very… _inspiring_ … performances.”  
  
“Inspiring,” the King breathes. “Enticing, I would say.”  
  
“Oh?” Azura replies, pulling back and arching an eyebrow. Then her lips curl into a smile. “Good.”  
  
They don’t speak very much after that.  
  
Azura kneels bare on the thick rug, gown discarded, while the King's hand guides her head between her legs, undoes the buttons of her trousers, pulls them down with her smalls. Azura's tongue runs up her shaft, tasting the heat and the salt of her skin. The King's breath hitches and Azura knows that although she can't keep the King entertained by purring 'your Majesty' and swaying her hips, her mouth and tongue will have to do.  
  
It's not a long affair— and Azura likes to think that it's because she's good at what she does. Her knees press divots into the settee. She licks the salt from her lips and does not look the King in the eye.  
  
The King leans back on the settee as if she were lounging upon her throne— Azura's seen paintings of that nature, with the young (late adolescent at most), handsome king in his cape and his crown, a leg over the armrest and a porcelain cheek pillowed on an unblemished fist, one hand free to wave over a servant to do as he wished. It was an image of haughty regality meant to imply that kings who did such were no more than spoiled children with silver spoons in their mouths given command of hundreds, and yet her Majesty captures the image with all of the grace and little, if any, of the snobbiness.  
  
The diadem stays perfectly in place, as if it's part of her. Azura supposes it ought to be, given that she's the King.  
  
"So what the old Queen says is true," the King says, letting a smirk raise the corner of her mouth. She's flushed and sweaty, in naught but her white gloves and her trousers, pulled down and unlaced to expose her exhausted length. "You are quite good at what you do."  
  
The King stands, leans, lounges on the bedspread. Azura does not move. She watches as the King stretches, arching her muscled back and shoulders, all strong and battle-scarred with the physique of a warrior, stretching herself like a cat sprawling in the sun.  
  
"I should hope so, your Majesty," Azura replies, remaining on the settee. Without the King's heat so close to her skin, the room is cold. Arousal stirs between her legs.  
  
The King gestures for her to rise. On stiff knees, Azura does. She's bare physically but beneath the sharp gaze of the King, it's even more so. Every inch of her skin is on display as if the King has her beneath a floodlight, every hair standing on end, every nerve electrified. The King gestures with her head, beckoning her closer. Like a puppet on a string, Azura obeys.  
  
She joins the King on the bed, feeling the softness of the covers on her bare skin. The King sits up, languidly traces the curve of Azura's cheek, down her neck, over her breast, down her hip. Then back up to cup the back of her head, leaning in closer, capturing Azura's tongue in a deep, heavy kiss. Azura tastes some expensive liquor on her lips, too washed-out for her to tell what kind.  
  
"Lie down," the King murmurs. Azura does, feeling the softness of the bed like it's about to swallow her. Now it feels even more like an altar for virgin sacrifice, except Azura is no virgin and you'd have to undo ten years of her life to make her one. The King moves away, spreads Azura's bare legs with little resistance, leaves her sprawled on the bed and laying herself bare and open for her Majesty.  
  
The King pulls off one of her gloves. It's a sight that, framed by Azura's bare thighs, shouldn't be  as sensual as it is— and yet, Azura feels the telltale tug between her legs that tells her that, at least physically, she's into this. It's on the tip of her tongue to ask the King what she's doing.  
  
As if sensing her question, the King pauses. "May I?" she asks, bare hand alighting on Azura's knee.  
  
Azura finds her voice. "What?"  
  
The King, as if it's obvious, gestures to her heat. "May I pleasure you, of course," she replies.  
  
Azura's not sure what to make of that. "What?"  
  
The King looks at her strangely. She holds up two fingers, palm turned outwards, then puts the forefinger of her other hand in the valley between her fingers. She moves it back and forth a bit, while Azura watches in confusion that not even she can disguise.  
  
"Are you not familiar with this?" the King asks, tilting her head like a confused dog. "I take my fingers and I—"  
  
"I know what you're talking about, your Majesty," Azura interrupts, forgetting that you're not supposed to interrupt royalty. She feels herself flush. This is absurd.  
  
"Right, so, may I?" the King repeats. Azura hesitates. The King, noticing this, pulls back. "Are you alright?"  
  
Azura looks at her. It's an honest question, with no hint of ridicule or threat. Azura's not used to honesty. She fumbles with the words, licking at her lips and looking at the bedsheets instead of the King's face.  
  
The King takes a step back. Azura, reflexively, pulls herself a little closer— shifts her legs back together, hunches her shoulders inward. She would feel far more secure if she weren't naked, but she's not going to dress until she has her king's leave. She's learned that lesson the hard way.  
  
"I see." The King's expression is unreadable. Azura braces herself for anger, to be rejected and discarded as kings do with concubines who are no longer useful, but this king, the Foreseer-King, does none of that. Instead she picks up Azura's gown from the floor and hands it to her. Wordless, Azura blinks, until the King nods encouragement. Azura takes it, redoes the ties, and feels considerably safer.  
  
The King picks up her undershirt from the floor and pulls it over her head. While she's redoing the buttons of her doublet, she turns back to Azura— who still hasn't left, having learned it's best to wait until dismissed.  
  
"I don't understand," Azura ventures.  
  
The King quirks an eyebrow. "Don't understand what?"  
  
Azura gestures vaguely, hoping moving her hands may help words sort themselves out. "What are you doing? You're the King. You do what you want, when you want, with who you want. You've been given a concubine on a silver platter, but you—" she falters.  
  
To her credit, the King merely shrugs. "I care little for status," she says. "I'm not so naïve as to think that if we all hold hands and say grace together around the same dinner table there will be no more conflict in the world, but the beliefs I've been raised with all my life are that people, regardless of origin, are all just that— people. If you were my friend, I'd have asked. The same if you were my courtier, my lover, my wife. Though you may be a concubine and I may be a king, you have boundaries that I must endeavor to respect as an adult in a relationship. You will do the same. That is what relationships are built on, regardless of class."  
  
It makes sense. For a moment Azura's struck by the nobility of that— at least, she's never heard anyone put it that way. For years, what she does has come before what she wishes, and she'd learned to roll with it. She dances, both on stage and in the bedroom, for whoever pays enough for her services— or for whoever she's directed to please. Although the King doesn't even bat an eye at her own humility, considering it the very base of what she can do, to Azura it feels… bigger.  
  
The King shrugged. "With that bit said," she decided, pulling her glove back on. "Azura."  
  
Her name on the King's lips sounds like honey. Azura watches her as she looks Azura straight in the face, giving her no room to look away— a gaze of captivating heterochromic blue, lighter in the left than in the right.  
  
"If you want to leave," she began. "You can. I won't fault you for wanting a fresh start, after all you've been through. I'll see to getting you a place of your own in Ylisstol, or giving you what you may need to find somewhere outside the city, even the country if that's what you want. Do you… do you want that?"  
  
Azura doesn't know how to answer.  
  
"I'll let you think about it," the King decides. "But since it seems you'll be staying here in the meantime, I'd like you to let me know if you need anything. Or if anybody says anything to you that's… less than flattering… I'd like to know. Can you do that for me, Azura?"  
  
Azura can try. She nods.  
  
A relieved smile comes onto the King's face. "I'm very glad," she says. And then she finishes buttoning up her doublet and leaves Azura alone in the lavish royal suite.


	2. Night Rendezvous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"And if it's true?" The King's eyes bore into her like sewing room pins through a coat. "Don't you fear what I'll do to you? I have absolute power over you, you know."_
> 
> _"Is that a threat, your Majesty?" Azura replies._

The next few weeks are… strange, at least for Azura. Although the accommodations that the King provided for her are nicer than anything she's had before, she finds herself wandering the castle most days— keeping out of sight as much as she can, stealing scraps from the kitchen if she gets hungry between meals. As relieved as she is to have time to herself, it's odd. She's not used to having time to herself.  
  
In those few weeks, she sees the king maybe twice— the first time is to ask if she's any closer to coming to a decision on whether or not she wants to stay, and seeing that Azura still doesn't have an answer, asking if she's finding the castle to her liking. The second, another night in her quarters that goes much more according to what Azura's used to, except better. The King still asks before touching Azura, and Azura still doesn't know quite how to handle it but she says yes anyway. And when it's over she asks that Azura stay, so Azura does.  
  
The King is already up when Azura wakes, though it's early enough that she's taking her time. She's half-dressed and leaning against one wall, staring at the early morning sun rising over the city. The sunlight lights up the blue of her hair and the brown of her skin, glancing off her bare breast, tracing the tone of every muscle in her stomach and the slightly-paler knit of every scar. She leans, elbow on the wall, like an ancient sculpture made by the old masters or a character in a relief carved into a vase. Her bad hand rests on the belt of her trousers. It's a pretty image, but all Azura wonders is if it's required that young, handsome kings stand around and look pensive at least once per day.  
  
"Azura," she says, teasing the accent in Azura's name upon her liquor-tasting lips. "Have you ever been in love?"  
  
It's too early for deep questions. Azura pushes a strand of powder-blue, tangled like the rest of her morning hair, from her face. "What?"  
  
"Love," the King repeats. "Forgive me for the sudden question, but it was weighing on my mind. Have you ever been in love?"  
  
Azura blinks. "No," she says. "I'm a concubine, your Majesty. We aren't meant to love."  
  
The King hums. "Everyone's meant to love, if you ask me," she says.  
  
"Did you only ask that to dispense wisdom?" Azura asks, a hint of teasing in her tone of voice, drawing herself from the bed and padding silently over to the King. Like she has so many times, her hand traces the King's chest. "Seems far too early for that."  
  
"No, no," the King replies. She catches Azura's hand, stills it. She picks up a thick, warm robe off a chair and draws it over Azura's shoulders. "It was just on my mind, is all."  
  
She turns away then, resumes dressing, leaving Azura wrapped in one of her robes and wondering what that was all about.

* * *

  
  
She thinks on it while the weeks go by— and it takes three of them, three weeks of seeing the King only in passing, for Azura to decide that it's a game.  
  
It must be— why else would the King toy with her so? She's found herself the most wretched woman in the country and chosen her to play with like a cat swatting around a mouse before eating it. The King has given her lodging, food, clothing, all she requires, and despite knowing what Azura can do and knowing what she's worth, she does nothing. In the end she doesn't want Azura at all for her body, and instead wants her because Azura has no choice but to go along with her game.  
  
Azura invites herself into the King's quarters after night has settled over Ylisstol and the King has retired. She steals through the fine marble halls with her bare feet silent on the floors, low skirt of her gown swishing about her heels.  
  
The King is preparing for bed. She's bare-chested and barefoot, wearing soft linen pants and holding her nightshirt over one arm. Her blue eyes are piercing even in the low light, and they flick Azura's direction when she slips in through the door to her bedchamber. They try to pin Azura in place, and like the impermanent being she is, she slips through them and places herself half-on and half-off the royal bed.  
  
The King glances at her. "Azura," she says. Her word rolls down Azura's back. She curves, pushing one shoulder up to her ear and letting the other drop.  
  
"Your Majesty," Azura replies.  
  
"I don't recall summoning you," the King says, all business— as per- _fucking_ -usual. "Was there something you wanted?"  
  
"I know there's something you want, your Majesty," Azura purrs. "You've been so patient, holding back. But I know people, and nobody can hold out forever.”  
  
"If you're trying to seduce me," the King says, setting her nightshirt on an extra chair, "I'd at least like to see better than clichéd lines and swiveling shoulders."  
  
Azura narrows her eyes. "And what do you know about seduction?"  
  
"Not much," the King says humbly. "But more than you think."  
  
Azura's coy smile drops like a stone. "Cut the crap," she says harshly. "I can see through your silly game. You can stop pretending you're so above it all now."  
  
"I don't know what you mean," the King says evenly, shaking the wrinkles out of her nightshirt.  
  
"Don't play dumb," Azura sneers, which she's always been told is too ugly an expression to be present on her pretty face. "This is all a game to you, isn't it? Acting humble and noble, finding the most wretched person on the face of this blasted planet and making her fall in love with your pretty words so she doesn't suspect a thing when you use her like the cheap whore she is. She goes on thinking you're different than all the others she's had, but really, you're just the same— except you're a liar as well as a cad."  
  
The words have their desired effect. The King's piercing gaze sharpens, turns to her, says silently: know your place, I am your king, after all. It's exactly what Azura wants.  
  
"And where did you get this ridiculous assumption?" the King asks slowly. Azura can hear the anger burning slow in the low tones of her voice. "You seem wholly convinced."  
  
Azura scoffs. "It's obvious," she says. "Kings and whores have never been of equal calibre, and you know it's naïve to think otherwise. I know you only pretend to want me so you can have my body."  
  
"And if it's true?" The King's eyes bore into her like sewing room pins through a coat. "Don't you fear what I'll do to you? I have absolute power over you, you know."  
  
"Is that a threat, your Majesty?" Azura replies.  
  
"It could be." The King turns towards her, walks slowly, languidly around the bed, until she's standing over Azura with her full height. She's a head taller than Azura when they're both standing, but this is a position Azura's been in before.  
  
"So follow through," Azura says, shifting off the bed until her bare feet are buried in the too-plush rug. "I know you want to. Why bother with silly games and lies when I'm right here?"  
  
Instead of answering, the King does exactly what Azura expected and takes her chin, pulls her into an angry, hungry kiss. Her teeth sink into Azura's lip not hard enough to draw sounds of pain, not yet. She pushes Azura down onto the bed with no resistance, bears over her with her back arched, pulls away from the kiss with those shades of blue glinting even in the low light. She reminds Azura of a wolf— its prey cornered, teeth bared before it deals the killing blow.  
  
She pulls back, kneels with a knee between Azura's legs. Her hands go to Azura's gown, hands tangling themselves in the white fabric. She hesitates, hesitates for too long. Azura sets her hands on top and pulls the fabric apart, sheds it from her shoulders, leaves herself bare before the King. She puts her hands on the King's waistband, arches her back until her bare breast pushes against the King's chest.  
  
"You could destroy me right here," she purrs, lips trailing up the King's neck and to her ear. "Show me what power a King truly holds. Are you a king, your Majesty? Or merely a woman without the strength to back up her claims?"  
  
The King growls low, grabs Azura's wrists and pins her back down on the bed. Azura laughs breathily, not a sound born of enjoyment but of thrill, the thrill of feeling the King's strong hands grasping her wrists and pressing her to the mattress. The King is done playing nice. She kisses Azura deeply, tongue pushing into her mouth, then pulls back and takes Azura's chin in one of her hands.  
  
"Here's how this is going to work," the King says, voice taking an authoritative tone, made a little rough at the edge with the huskiness of her voice. "I'm going to be rough with you, since clearly that's what you want from me. If I need to stop, tap my shoulder twice. If I need to slow down, tap it once. Understood?"  
  
"Yes, your Majesty," Azura says, but the King doesn't look pleased.  
  
"And don't _fucking_ call me that," she snarls. "I have a name, and you're going to use it."  
  
"I like it when you growl," Azura purrs. "Lucina, isn't it? Are you sure I won't get executed for taking your name in vain?"  
  
The King smirks. "I'm no god," she says. "Merely a woman. And I'm a woman who's going to put that clever tongue of yours to good use."  
  
"I'm absolutely thrilled," Azura replies. "Lucina."  
  
She feels the shudder run through the King's—Lucina's?— body. "Good," she says. "That's good."  
  
The King claims her lips once more, driving their bodies together with frustration-fueled force— powerful, meant to show Azura her strength, but controlled. Azura, for all the experience she has, feels like she's angered a thunderbolt barely restrained by the forces of physics. Oh, but the way the King's hand goes between her legs with the rocking rhythm of their kisses could never make her regret it, and the raw physicality of touching, of sex burns against her skin, rocks into every fiber of her being with every stroke the King's forefingers make into her and every wanton moan that rolls off her lips. In the moment it matters not why she does this— all that matters is it's happening, and with every smack, every whimper, every moan, it's real. Her skin burns with sensation, every nerve in her body alight. Azura loses herself.  
  
The King's grip on her wrist loosens. She re-situates herself, pulls herself up so she's kneeling over Azura, trousers down, length exposed and ready, aching to drive itself into Azura's slick heat until neither of them can move. Through Azura's half-lidded eyes, she can see the flush of the King's skin, brown and battle-scarred and gleaming in the candlelight. Azura holds her legs apart, waits with heavy breaths for her Majesty to enter at her pleasure.  
  
Azura doesn't have a quip. "Do it," she breathes. "Please, Lucina."  
  
"You're alright?" the King asks.  
  
"Please," Azura repeats.  
  
The King takes that as a yes. She comes down on Azura again, starts slow with her hips— Azura feels the King rub her from the inside, and pushes her hips up. Though whether that was a conscious choice or merely her body reacting to the intense sensory playground we call sex, who can say?  
  
She feels the sensation lessen, feels the King slow. Seizing control, she digs her hands in the King's hair.  
  
"Don't stop," she grinds out. "Lucina—"  
  
"I'm not stopping," the King replies. "I don't want to hurt you—"  
  
"Shut up!" Azura finds herself snarling, digging her fingers tighter. "Shut up and fuck me! I know you want to!"  
  
Azura feels a rush of chill when the King pulls herself out, and the pressure around her wrists when the King takes them and pulls Azura's hands from her hair. Azura can't believe this— who stops in the middle of sex? If she tried that with anyone else, she'd have been killed for it.  
  
"I'm not doing this," the King says, lacing her trousers back up. "You're clearly not ready."  
  
"What?" Azura snaps. "Not ready?"  
  
"It's simple," the King begins. "Though I'm beginning to think that entry-level concepts surrounding sex elude you. I was going to start slow so I didn't overload you too soon and then work back up, but considering you're not willing to listen, I think it best if we put a halt on intimacy for the time being."  
  
Azura doesn't understand— she doesn't understand, what part of this is simple? "Are you joking?" she demands.  
  
The King picks up her gown from the ground and tosses it her way. She doesn't answer. "I think it best if you return to your chambers for the night," she says.  
  
"Now who's not willing to listen?" Azura replies. The King picks up her nightshirt and pulls it over her head. Azura watches her inhale through her nose, and probably count to ten.  
  
"Alright," the King says shortly. "If you're willing to communicate now, then I will hear you out."  
  
The words fumble through Azura's mindscape while her senses fade from hyper-aroused to ordinary levels. She feels chill seep back into her fingertips, emptiness echoing on her skin where the King's touch painted her body. What bubbles up first is why, second is I don't understand, third is this isn't how it works, fourth is how is this so easy to you, fifth is what's wrong with me, sixth is why can't I understand what you're saying if it's so easy for you.  
  
"It isn't _easy_ ," Azura decides. "This. How you make it. It used to be, for me, because whoever I was with would just use me as they pleased and leave, but this is— I don't understand and I don't know what game you're trying to play, but you keep saying it's simple, it's easy, and I don't get it."  
  
The King frowns. "I'm not playing any game," she says. "You were accusing me of lying to you, using your situation to feed my own ego, weren't you? And yet you won't believe me when I swear to you that I'm not."  
  
"Nobody does that!" Azura protests. "At least— not with me."  
  
"Then maybe it's time they start," Lucina replies.  
  
That turns her thoughts into a mess that she can't hope to untangle, like the aftermath of a cat that got into an old lady's knitting bag. Her hands still, clenched in the fabric of her gown, while her mind races. Every thought she has races for a solution and yet she can't find one, something is wrong, what's wrong with it, what's wrong with her—  
  
"Forget it," she says, shaking the thoughts from her head and putting her gown back on.  
  
"Azura—" the King protests, while Azura pushes herself off the bed and makes her way to the door.  
  
"I said forget it!" Azura snaps. Before she can regret the words she said, she hurries out the door and back to her chambers. For the first time in ages that she can remember, she feels tears stinging her eyes as she goes.


	3. Afterwords

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"We're not," Azura begins, tasting the words upon her tongue, "Equals."_
> 
> _"Why not?" the King asks._

The castle feels much lonelier after that.  
  
The King gives her space. She still doesn't know what game she's playing— asking to be called by her first name like they're equals, saying these things that don't add up and acting like it's common sense. It doesn't make any sense.  
  
So it's the King who approaches her chambers after a few days. She knocks twice on the door with her good hand. Azura answers, knowing full well it won't be anybody else— the King's family never visits this wing of the castle, and to all the servants and staff, she may as well be invisible.  
  
The King is in purple today. Azura wonders if she has a closet full of doublets in various colors, which she wears depending on her mood. She nods politely to Azura. The lintel of the doorframe is level with her forehead.  
  
"Might I come in?" she asks. Wordlessly, Azura steps aside.  
  
Her chambers are small— nicer than the accommodations she's had before, but it's not exactly the royal suite. Still, she has a bed off the ground and a blanket when the nights are cold, and she can't say she's always had that.  
  
There's nowhere for the King to sit. She settles for standing, half-leaning on the stone wall. Azura folds her arms. She's not going to speak first.  
  
Luckily, she doesn't have to. "I've come to apologize to you," the King says. She feels different than the times Azura's visited her chambers. "Are you still angry?"  
  
Azura's hands clench around her arms. "I don't know," she finds herself saying. "I don't think so."  
  
"I understand." The King's voice is even, but soft. Gentle, even. She radiates authority, but subtly, and more so she has an easy grace that makes it easy for Azura to imagine her sitting in an armchair with a cup of tea. Pleasant, inviting, even familiar. Like the area around her is a shield, around which bad things may roam, but they cannot venture close. Around her, it is safe. Azura's noticed it before, but it seems stronger now, not like she's trying but like it simply is.  
  
Azura won't let her guard down. She won't, but it's odd thinking that she wants to.  
  
"I've realized it was probably unfair of me, the other day," the King begins. "Calling things simple when, to you, they're clearly not."  
  
"It's not that, exactly," Azura sighs. "It's— it's the way you say it. Like it should be obvious. You keep treating me like we're equals when you know that's not the way it is."  
  
"It's how it should be," the King replies.  
  
"Well, it's not," Azura says. Then she sighs, sitting on the low bed. She pushes a hand through her hair, long and loose and pale blue. Talking is easy— she can make people melt in her hands with the right words and the right motions, knows enough about how nobles speak to predict what they'll say with startling accuracy. The King has taken all of that knowledge and rendered it useless, and along the way done something to stir up all these feelings she doesn't know how to deal with.  
  
"We're not," Azura begins, tasting the words upon her tongue, "Equals."  
  
"Why not?" the King asks.  
  
"You're a king," Azura replies. "I'm not-- more than that, I'm a concubine. Your concubine. You own me."  
  
The King's lip curls with distaste. "I dislike that notion, that one can own another human being," she says. "But, that's neither here nor there. How long have you been a concubine, Azura?"  
  
Azura does the math. "Seven, eight years," she guesses. "I was making a living the same way for longer, though. You do what you have to when you're on your own."  
  
"I see." The King says it like that explains it all, and leans forward in the chair with a creak of the old wood. She rubs at her face thoughtfully with one hand, elbow braced upon her knee. Her nails are short, with ragged edges. Clearly she chews them.  
  
"Have you given any more thought to leaving?" the King asks, snapping Azura from her reverie. "I realize adjusting may be... difficult, given what you've told me, but it's an option."  
  
Azura hesitates. "I don't know what I'd do," she admits. "This is all I'm good for."  
  
"I disagree," the King says. "You just haven't had the chance to find anything else out."  
  
Azura had never thought of it that way. She fidgets with the hem of her gown. The King shifts— she's really too tall for that chair, but she's so tall she must find it difficult to sit in chairs comfortably. As it is, she has one leg tucked beneath it and the other stretched out, leaning slightly to the side, one elbow on the little table next to it. Somehow, she manages to make it look graceful.  
  
"Have you seen much of the city?" the King asks. "It's very beautiful."  
  
Azura quirks an eyebrow. "Are you offering?"  
  
"I could be." The King sends a smile her way. "If you're accepting."


	4. The Summer Faire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _In a fine gown and with her hair braided, she doesn’t look any different from the noble ladies that roam in packs, putting flowers in each others’ hair and getting sugar on their fingers from the pastries. In another life she’s one of them, smiling and giggling when one of them reaches forward and smudges the sugar on another’s nose._

Truth be told, Azura didn't really have the chance to see Ylisstol— her escorts walked her through quickly enough she was focused more on not tripping than she was looking at the cityscape. She'll admit now that it felt somewhat like she was a condemned walking to her execution. (And for some situations she's been in, that wasn't far-off.)  
  
The King makes her appearance in Ylisstol for the midsummer festival every year. She makes lots of appearances, that Azura's learned— and it seems that sometimes she just goes into the city because she can. It strikes Azura as odd that she even can. Most kings she's met can't leave without a squad of bodyguards just in case something goes wrong.  
  
She supposes it'll make getting a tour feel a little more private, though— even if it seems unlikely the King's giving her a tour on a pretense.  
  
The King’s given her a gift— a dress, suitable for a noble, but nicer than anything Azura’s worn. Ylisseans don’t seem fond of frills and ribbons and scalloping in their fashions, preferring to show their wealth in knowledge and in culture rather than in decadence. It might be a purposeful show of humility, at least that’s how Azura can see it.  
  
Regardless of what Azura thinks, the dress is quite nice. It’s full-length— she’s young, but she’s not a maiden, after all— and in green, lush and verdant as the leafy trees outside wire-glass windows. The neckline drops beneath her collarbone, edged in something decorative but not frilly, and though the sleeves stop at her elbows, they flare out under her biceps and trail into a layer of white ruffling. The skirt itself, though, parts just under the bodice to reveal another layer, this one creamy white and just as soft as the rest of the gown.  
  
It fits her nicely. Azura doesn’t know what she expected.  
  
Azura’s laced herself in when a knock comes from the door. “It’s open,” she calls, figuring it’s the King— because who else ever visits her?  
  
She’s right. The King smiles, seeing her in the dress. She’s in a matching green for the occasion, and her trousers are the same creamy white as Azura’s underskirt. She definitely has the same doublet in different colors for different occasions, Azura thinks, because all the doublets she’s seen the king wear have had the same cut.  
  
“I just came to check if it fits alright,” she says, eyes shamelessly tracing Azura’s shape while Azura checks the fit of the dress. Azura may not have needed to smooth her hands over the curve of her hips to really be sure of how the fabric hugged her shape, but it didn’t hurt.  
  
“It fits perfectly,” Azura says. “But you know you’re under no obligation to clothe me at all, right? I can do my job just fine with a pair of silk scarves. Have, actually.” Duke Kauffmann of Nohr had interesting tastes, until one of his other concubines wrung his neck with said scarves and ran off with one of his knights and half his fortune, leaving the rest of the house in chaos.  
  
“Where’s the fun in that?” the King replied, mildly bemused. “Think of it like this, if you’re so intent on working the concubine angle: half the fun of having someone you can appropriately give clothing to is that they’re under social obligation to wear it, if only once. It’s not unlike seeing a fantasy come to life when it does happen, though— and from the standpoint of kings and concubines, seeing a concubine in clothing you’ve provided her probably provides some sort of… psychological validation or proof of ownership. As for me, though?” She grins, mischievous glint in her blue eyes. “I just love looking at you.”  
  
She leans in closer to whisper the last words into Azura’s ear. The hair on Azura’s arms stands on end. She knows that the context here is, for once, mostly innocent, but trust Lucina to make it sound exciting. Her hands alight on Azura’s bodice, pulling it just a bit tighter. Azura’s heart beats.  
  
Her mouth opens. Azura thinks she’s going to whisper something seductive, but all she says is, “Come, now. I have another gift for you.”  
  
But she’s not going to give it quite yet. Instead she waits, sitting— lounging, really, the King never simply sits— in the chair in Azura’s bedchamber while watching Azura comb through her long hair and fold it into a plait. Wouldn’t do for her to go out with it down, after all; what is she, a whore?  
  
“Lovely,” the King remarks. “Green suits you.”  
  
Azura hums. “If I’d known I was to be your date on this occasion, I’d have cleaned up quicker.”  
  
“You’re not my date,” the King replies. “Unless, of course, you want to be.”  
  
Azura’s not quite sure how to answer that. Luckily she doesn’t have to— the King takes out the box she’d carried in with her, and offers it to Azura. Azura looks skeptical. The King nods.  
  
Azura opens it, then looks at its contents quizzically. It’s a pair of shoes— slippers, to be precise, with padding on the inside sole to cushion one’s steps. They’re green, to match the dress, though they’re simple enough that clearly they’re not intended to be the star of the ensemble.  
  
“Forgive me if this is too forward,” the King says. “But I didn’t know if you had any shoes of your own. You’re always barefoot when I see you, even the day you arrived, so I assumed… and it wouldn’t do if you’re to leave the castle. As long as you remain here, you are a guest of the realm, and will be treated with the respect a guest deserves.”  
  
Azura doesn’t know how to respond to this. Perhaps because there’s never been a need— because nobody ever asked, because nobody ever needed her outdoors, because if dancing was what she did and she didn’t wear shoes to dance then why would she need them? But mostly because nobody ever asked.  
  
The King catches her hesitation. “You needn’t accept them just to make me feel better,” she says. “And feel free to correct me if my assumption was wrong. But they match,” she says weakly, confidence flagging as she goes on.  
  
“No, no,” Azura interrupts, shaking herself free from her thoughts. “They’re very pretty, and… you were right. I don’t have a pair of my own, simply because there’s never been a need.”  
  
The King hums. “I see,” she says. It’s all she says on the matter. Azura’s mind briefly flits to her sitting on the bed and the King tugging the back of the slipper over her heel, slow and soft, hands light against Azura’s skin— but that’s far too intimate for what they are, and Azura can put on her own damned shoes. Which she does, quick and simple. The slippers, of course, fit perfectly.  
  
It’s a beautiful day out in the streets of Ylisstol. The sun shines down on the buildings, all with pretty painted shutters, decorated with wreaths and garlands. It’s as picturesque as a painting, as beautiful as Azura would’ve expected from the capitol city of a realm as prosperous as Ylisse. Folk from all walks of life mingle in the crowded streets, crowding at street food stalls and around vendors hawking their wares, all in bright colors with wreaths of flowers and leaves around their heads. Carts full of summertime fruits and vegetables and flowers pour in along with farmers eager to sell, and sell they do— as do the inns and taverns. Even in the middle of the day, ale and mead flow freely. Ordinarily Azura would be restricted to watching such festivity from the windows of her chamber (or the king’s chamber), but now— now is different.  
  
The King’s had to go on ahead— royal business, needing to prepare for the address in the pavilion outside the city with the rest of the royal family— so Azura’s left to roam. She weaves seamlessly through the crowd, new slippers padding silently on the stone-paved roads, as sounds and smells of merriment float through the air. In a fine gown and with her hair braided, she doesn’t look any different from the noble ladies that roam in packs, putting flowers in each others’ hair and getting sugar on their fingers from the pastries. In another life she’s one of them, smiling and giggling when one of them reaches forward and smudges the sugar on another’s nose.  
  
For a moment Azura aches for that version of herself, and wonders if her story is the same— if she still fled a broken country as a toddler in her mother's arms, if she still grew up alone, scavenging for crumbs and dancing in marketplaces for pocket change, until she learned to use her body for money, until she grew enough that she became a prize of kings, a courtesan given housing and food and security so long as her beauty and her talent remained. She wonders if she knows the Foreseer-King Lucina in that different world. Perhaps she’s a real suitor, the lucky woman the King’s chosen to court with walks on the grounds and tokens of favor. Perhaps that’s the version of her that the King takes a knee before, presses kisses to her hands and her cheeks, light touches with no expectation of what comes next. Perhaps that’s the version of her that knows how to respond in kind, that won’t run away at the fear of anything new and promising. Perhaps that’s the version of her that knows something good when she sees it, and embraces it for what it is rather than running away or rejecting it because perhaps this version of her has had good things without fate ripping them out of her hands.  
  
Azura feels her heart ache. She’s staring at a fruit stall. The giggling noble ladies are gone and all there is is Azura, feeling longing for a version of her that does not exist and a version of the King that she’s sure she’ll never meet.  
  
That's enough of her own thoughts. She hurries to the pavilion to catch up with Lucina.  
  
The pavilion's on the fringes of the city proper, where the buildings give way to meadows and stretches of riverbed. There's tents and stalls set up around the meadows. Colorful flags and streamers fly from every post. On the lakeshore not far from where Azura exits the city, a flock of pegasi and Ylissean riders in bright green and silver uniforms stand at attention while a tall woman built like a brick wall holds the reins of an equally tall and bulky pegasus and explains orders to her crew.  
  
It's easy enough to find the royal family— they're a herd of blond and blue, standing in a group in the white marble pavilion while a huge, broad knight in shining silver armor and a crown of daisies stands guard. Streamers and garlands twine around the pillars and fly from the roof, all in bright, inviting colors, while groups of minstrels tune their instruments and argue over who's playing the pavilion first.  
  
She lingers at first, among the civilians who whisper of their glimpses of House Grace, of the city guard in silver armor with lances at the ready, just in case. She spots the King easily— silver circlet resting on her brow, gloved hands behind her back, in that green doublet and the cream-colored trousers. She's tall and regal, just the way a young king's supposed to look, and it's her who draws Azura's attentions. She's talking with several others with the same type of circlets and signet rings— all in green, like it's a requirement for the royals to wear green on the day of the festival. Azura figures why; green is the color of the Ylissean royal coat of arms.  
  
Azura counts them. There's the King's father, a big, square-shaped older man with hair the same cobalt as his daughter's, though his is silver at the temples; two blonde women, one lean and slender and wearing her hair in ringlets and the other tall and bulky like the Radiant King with her blonde hair up in a bun of curls, both whispering quietly to each other; a pair of twins, a boy and a girl, with blue curls and skin that matches the King's in tone exactly, grinning at each other like they're plotting a coup (though Azura doubts that); a beautiful woman with very pale hair but skin too bronze to mark her as a Ylissean native, on the arm of the old King and presumably his wife but who looks barely older than her daughter, if you'd asked Azura; a young girl with hair and skin matching the old Queen with tiny pink flowers woven into her long hair; a young blond man in a doublet matching the King's craning his neck to look at two pegasus riders in the sky, swooping through with big baskets full of flower petals that scatter as the riders struggle to keep the lids closed.  
  
The King catches her eye through the crowd. Her face brightens, and she waves Azura over. Azura obeys, as she's done most of her life.  
  
The King's arm goes around her waist, continuing the conversation with her father and mother like nothing's changed at all. Azura supposes she'll play along— until she knows what game the King is playing.  
  
"And we're _sure_ all the pegasi are in order?" the King's asking, brow furrowed. "I don't want a repeat of last year."  
  
"Don't worry, Lucina," her mother says gently. "I've spoken to Cynthia personally about that. And if something unforeseen does come up, I've a plan to deal with it as well." Now that Azura’s closer, she can see faint creases at the corners of the old Queen's eyes. Her silver circlet dips between her eyes and unlike her husband's and daughter's, hers has a glittering gem, smoky gray, resting between her pale silver brows. A shock of snow-white runs through the pale of her hair, but Azura has to be close to see it. She really is beautiful— and she shares the King's features. Azura has to admit that if the chips had fallen differently and she was to be the concubine of this queen, she wouldn't have minded at all.  
  
The King sends a quick glance to Azura. "I just want things to go well," she says. Her hand moves up and takes Azura's gently— Azura has absolutely no idea what she's doing. "It's Azura's first Ylissean summer faire, you see, so I— want to make a good impression."  
  
It's a picture-perfect segue into introducing Azura formally. Her parents' eyes shift from Lucina to Azura, and Azura suddenly feels very new and very foreign. She could seduce either of these people with five minutes' prep time, but a conversation? Making a good impression? She may as well be an urchin the King plucked off the streets.  
  
"This is Azura," the King says. "She's my accompaniment to the festival. Azura, this is my father and my mother."  
  
Azura bobs her head. She doesn't trust herself to speak.  
  
"We've met, briefly," the old King says. He takes Azura's hand and kisses its back— formal, impartial, polite. Like she's Lucina's suitor and not her concubine. Is that what they're pretending? "I take it you're finding the castle and city to your liking?"  
  
"Everything is lovely, your Majesties," Azura says, finding her voice. "Ylisse is truly a beautiful country. I lack words to truly describe it."  
  
"Ah, I understand," the old Queen chuckles, the creases around her eyes deepening. She has an accent Azura can't place. Plegian, maybe— Plegia and Ylisse are neighbors, if Azura's recalling the last map she's seen correctly. "When I first came to Ylisstol, I was so struck by how different it was. I could hardly speak!"  
  
"It truly is a wonderful city," the old King nods. "My sister's work still shows itself in the people's livelihood. She had this pavilion built, you know, for performances and shows."  
  
"You'll meet Aunt Emmeryn soon enough," the King promises. Azura can barely keep all these kings and queens in line. Lucina's parents take their leave, walking arm in arm through the crowds and greeting people on their way. Azura kind of wants to melt into the crowd as well, but the King's hand is still on her waist and there's more people to meet.  
  
The King gestures to the twins— they're in green coats rather than doublets, long coats that stop at the backs of their knees. The boy is tallest and has about an inch on the King, and the girl is shorter by about the same amount. The boy nudges his sister when Lucina's eyes settle on them, and Azura's not quite quick enough to see it, but she thinks she sees the sister shove a jar into her sleeve.  
  
"My brother, Prince Mark," the King says. The twins bob their heads politely in unison. "And my sister, Princess Morgan… my youngest sister, Princess Nah, is around somewhere— have you seen her?"  
  
"Not lately," the twins chorus.  
  
"Could be giving Cynthia a good-luck kiss before the show," Princess Morgan comments, nudging Prince Mark conspiratorially.  
  
"Maybe a token of her lady's favor," Prince Mark replies, snickering.  
  
The smaller girl, the one with daisies in her hair, shoves between the twins with an unamused expression on her face. "I dearly hope the two of you aren't gambling on my love life again," she says. Then she curtsies to Azura. "I'm sorry about them, ma'am," she mumbles, leaning a little closer— she's the only one even close to Azura's height. "They don't know how to properly meet any of Lucina's suitors."  
  
The King clears her throat. Princess Nah steps back, smoothing out her skirt. The twins share a glance, then size up Azura like they're measuring her attributes and how good she is in a pinch.  
  
"I didn't know Luci was courting again," Morgan comments. Clearly she's the ringleader for… whatever it is they're scheming. "Hope it goes better than the last time."  
  
"Luci's last girlfriend stabbed her with a fork," Mark whispers, leaning towards Azura. "Ask nicely and she'll show you the scar, though it's—"  
  
The King grabs a handful of Mark's collar and pushes him back. "Mark," she says sternly. "We agreed we wouldn't discuss Genevive."  
  
"It wasn't about Genevive," Mark protests. "It was Edith."  
  
"And Catherine," Morgan comments.  
  
"And Beatrice," Mark adds.  
  
"And didn't Severa stab you once?" Nah chimes in.  
  
"You're really bad at pickin' 'em, Luci—" Morgan begins, until Lucina cuts the three of them off with a sharp glare.  
  
Azura makes herself laugh, praying she doesn't sound too awkward. "I'll do my best not to stab your sister."  
  
The King rubs her temples. "Yes, I'd rather not be stabbed," she says, glaring at her three siblings. "I'd _also_ rather not hear of frog legs in the nobles' wineglasses."  
  
"They're frog _eyes_ ," Morgan protests. Mark pats her shoulder. "Frog _eyes_ , Luci! Frog legs. As if I'd stoop to _legs_. I can do better than that." She's mumbling as the two of them leave, presumably to put those same frog eyes into wineglasses. Offhandedly, Azura wonders how the twins decide who gets frog eyes and who doesn't.  
  
The King sighs. "I'll have a word with them privately," she mutters to Azura. "Wait here for me, would you?"  
  
Azura nods. Lucina's bad arm around her waist disappears, and she vanishes into the crowd— leaving Azura alone. With Nah vanished as well and the rest of the family dispersed, Azura idles by the pillar. The rest of the family's dispersed into the crowd. She wonders how anyone even keeps track with all the aunts and siblings and cousins.  
  
Someone blows a whistle. An excited murmur runs through the crowd, and they rush to gather in the open meadow where the pegasi are lining up. Azura watches from the pillar as the commander, short silver hair gleaming in the sunlight, gets into position at the head of the formation. An air show, then— Azura's heard of that sort of thing but never been to one. The band starts up, music amplified by the structure of the pavilion, as the whistle blows again, and then they're off, one by one, flights synchronized with the music.  
  
It's an impressive sight. Azura's almost engrossed in the show when the King returns to her side.  
  
"Enjoying the performance?" she asks. Azura almost jumps— almost, as in she would've if she hadn't heard the King approach.  
  
"It's impressive," Azura comments. "I've heard of air shows, but never been to one in person."  
  
"Well, Ylissean air shows are the best of the best," the King boasts, letting pride puff up her chest. "I should know. My aunt Phila's the best captain the Order's ever had. She trained them all herself."  
  
Azura lets a smile curve her lip. "You've got such a big family," she remarks. "How do you keep all the names in order?"  
  
The King shrugs. "You get used to it after a while. Come, I'll show you around."  
  
It turns out the air show isn't the only attraction the Festival has— people have set up games, there's bards on every corner, three different plays going on in the various amphitheatres, and Azura spots a group of mages gathered in the square outside the mage college (the Ylissean Institute of Magic and Related Sciences) planning something that the sign says won't be ready until dusk. It's probably a fireworks show, but Lucina refuses to tell her because it's supposed to be a surprise.  
  
Lucina buys a pair of sweetcorn pastries and gives one to Azura. They eat in the meadow by the lake, watching performers in motley chasing each other with wooden clubs and swearing in a language Azura doesn't speak, while a gathered crowd laughs, assuming it's part of the act. Children run through the fields with flower garlands and streamers. Lucina waves to a dancer in an open vest leading his troupe to their next performance spot, and he grins and waves back. Quite a few people wave or bow their heads to her in passing, Azura notices, and though their eyes glance at her, at the King's side, there's no judgement. To them, she's merely the King's new lover. To them, she may as well be another one of a thousand noble ladies, like the kind that can go to festivals and get pastries and smear powdered sugar on their friends' noses. She watches as a pair of redheaded pegasus knights— sisters, definitely— salute to the King briefly but grin matching grins too wide to merely be her soldiers, and she watches the King smile fondly at their backs as they melt into the crowd.  
  
The King notices her looking. "Do you want something, Azura?" she asks— attentive, as usual.  
  
"No, no, I'm fine," Azura insists. "I was just noticing how friendly they all are with you. You must be a popular ruler."  
  
The King only shrugs. "I just try to do what's right," she says. "But I've had it easy. The most strife I've seen is when Ylisse allied with Regna Ferox against a would-be invasion from Valm two years ago— I wasn't of age to take the throne, so my father sent me to lead the army into battle while he oversaw the effort from Ylisstol. In the end, there was no contest. We head it off before it could even begin. There was hardly even a battle."  
  
"Still," Azura says. "It's not every realm where a King can mingle freely with their subjects. If this were Nohr, you couldn't leave without a full guard. And yet here we are."  
  
"This isn't Nohr," the King replies. "Really, I haven't done much but keep a peace that was there since my aunt Emmeryn had the throne. She did all the real work. My father and I are merely ensuring it stays this way."  
  
Azura hums. "You don't like giving yourself much credit, do you?" she notices.  
  
"I haven't done anything I see as worth getting credit for," the King replies. "But I've not been King for very long."  
  
Azura supposes she has a point. "I suppose, but you could stand to take a little more pride in yourself," she says. "It never hurt anybody. Though humility does suit you."  
  
The King chuckles, though there's little mirth behind it. "Are you saying this because you believe it, or because it's what you're trained to do?"  
  
"I am nothing if not adaptable," Azura replies. The King takes that as an answer, and this time her laugh is a little more genuine.  
  
It's a nice laugh. Soft, almost girlish— Azura would've expected a low chuckle like the one from their first night together, that rolls across Azura's skin and electrifies every nerve along the way. Here it's as light as the summertime, as sweet as the perfume from the flower petals filling the air.  
  
They watch the sun set from their spot. Azura's head comes to rest on the King's shoulder, breathing in the scent of expensive liquor and armor polish and something softer— roses, maybe. She's warm and content, and she feels a smile on her lips without realizing why it's there. And when the mages' fireworks show is over and the vendors and performers have all packed up and the royal family trickles one by one back to the castle, they walk back hand in hand.


	5. Burning Desire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"I've never had a friend before," Azura admits. "Or a lover. So I hope you're not expecting much."_
> 
> _The King smiles, a soft, gentle thing alighting on her face like a butterfly on the slimmest twig. "I don't mind what we are now," she says. "Maybe we can figure out a name later. Is that alright?”_

The King walks her to her chambers. The skin between Azura's fingers feels cold where the King's hand left it. She sees Azura in, helps her undo the million tiny little buttons on her dress. Azura folds it and puts it in the chest of her few belongings at the foot of her bed. She changes into a nightdress, a faded, off-white thing that was a hand-me-down from one kind older lady or another she lived with; some brothel madame that pitied Azura's young age and tale of hardship. Azura doesn't remember anymore.  
  
"How did you find the festival?" the King asks her, cutting through the quiet. Azura's hands pause midway through unraveling her braid.  
  
She thinks on it for a while. The King waits, fidgeting with the buttons of her doublet, a hopeful little smile on her face. She's genuinely excited to hear Azura's response, genuinely hoping she had a good time. Azura doesn't know how to process this. She doesn't know how to process a lot of things.  
  
"It was nice," she says softly. "I liked the pastries, and the fireworks."  
  
The King's face lights up. "I'm very glad," she says, clearing her throat. She lingers like she wants to say something else, but isn't sure what.  
  
Azura takes pity on her. "Your family seems… big," she comments. "I can't say I've ever had to meet any royal families before."  
  
"I'm sorry if it was overwhelming," the King admits. "I did kind of push you into the deep end there."  
  
"I'm just not used to so many people all at once," Azura shrugs. She fidgets with the hem of her chemise. "It wasn't… _bad_ , though." She'd felt almost like a normal person.  
  
"Still, you don't have to keep accompanying me to festivals and events and such if you don't want to," the King promised. "You don't even have to officially meet my _entire_ extended family until you're comfortable with the idea."  
  
Azura snorts. "You act like we're courting," she says, sitting down on the bed. The King hesitates until Azura gestures her over, and then the King sits with her. Azura takes one of her hands and fidgets with her fingers, running her soft thumb over the callouses on the King's fingertips.  
  
The King flushes. "Is that so wrong?" she says. "Courting or not, I can't stand the idea of— of locking you up in a glorified vault like you're some precious object, as I understand is common for kings and concubines."  
  
"It is," Azura admits. "But we— you would _court_ me? Really?"  
  
"I would," the King says. "Why not?"  
  
Azura shakes her head. "You're…" _So full of shit_. "Being foolish. We're from two different worlds. You would never hear the end of it— marrying a concubine, convincing her she's worth marrying. You'd be laughed at."  
  
"Owning concubines is _illegal_ in this country, Azura," the King says, looking Azura square in the face. Her two-tone gaze is fierce, fiery, bright as a blinding star that Azura doesn't dare look away from. "Did you know that?"  
  
Azura doesn't dare speak. She shakes her head.  
  
"It is," the King says. "Since long before my time, it has been illegal to own another human being— to keep them in your residence and make them work in exchange for room and board, without at least a monthly stipend. In this country, while you live with me, you are no longer a concubine."  
  
The words echo in Azura's head. No longer a concubine— the King had told her that first night that she was free to go, should she choose. She would no longer be bound by anyone's rules or whims, given a place and the means to live as she chose. But Azura hadn't thought it was because it was illegal. Was that why nobody had looked at her as if they knew what she was— because, to them and in the eyes of the law, she wasn't a concubine? Was that why no one in the King's family had batted an eye?  
  
"What _am_ I?" Azura finally asks. "If I'm not a concubine— if I'm not _your_ concubine, what am I?"  
  
The King pulls away, her intense gaze lessening. "Officially, and until decided otherwise, you are a ward of Ylisse, under protection of the royal family," she says. "Unofficially, we're… I was hoping you were my friend."  
  
Azura's quiet. Her hands go to the lace trim of her chemise. It's a lot to swallow, what the King told her, and it's all happening so fast— so many new things, new experiences, all at once. A year previous, she lived her life in a tower in Castle Shirasagi, Hoshido, dancing when she was needed and watching life through the windows when she wasn't. Before that, she spent her days in the expensively-furnished bedchambers of a rich head of a household. Before that, warming the bed of a Nohrian duke. Luring rich-looking men into a gaudily-decorated brothel. Letting strangers see her bare before them for gold that she'd use to buy her next meal. Scrounging coins from passers-by by dancing until blisters rose on her bare feet. Stealing food from markets and sleeping in half-covered alleyways. Alone in a foreign country where people spoke too quickly and nobody would tell her what happened to her mother.  
  
She's never had friends before, much less royal ones. She hopes the King isn't expecting much.  
  
"I didn't know we were friends," she says quietly. "But then, I was under the impression friends didn't have sex with each other."  
  
"Most don't," the King admits. "There are exceptions. 'Friends with benefits,' one generally calls them. I'm not fond of the term myself— feels so impersonal."  
  
She sighs. "Truth be told, Azura," she says, "I don't know what we are. But is that such a bad thing?"  
  
"I suppose not." Azura says. She looks at her slippers, grass-stained on the bottoms but providing more padding and support for her feet than she ever recalls having. Her feet hurt; she's done more walking today than she has for ages, but she won't complain.  
  
"I've never had a friend before," Azura admits. "Or a lover. So I hope you're not expecting much."  
  
The King smiles, a soft, gentle thing alighting on her face like a butterfly on the slimmest twig. "I don't mind what we are now," she says. "Maybe we can figure out a name later. Is that alright?”  
  
It’s more than alright. Azura nods, and the King stands, as if to leave.  
  
“It’s been a long day,” she says. “I’ll bid you goodnight here, then. Unless you’d like to continue this talk in my quarters, where it’s significantly warmer.”  
  
And Azura does, so that’s where they go. She sits on the soft bed (it still feels a bit like a sacrificial altar, but less so now) and watches as the King pulls off the white gloves and sets them neatly on the top of her bureau, unbuttons her doublet with the slender, nimble fingers of her good hand. She’s mindful of the bones in her bad one as she pulls it off and sets it in the wash basket. Azura’s eyes trace the webbing of a long-healed scar on her midsection just under one of her ribs, whitish with age and knit with silvery veins of the magic they must’ve used to seal it up.  
  
The King must’ve noticed her looking. “I was a general of my father’s army before I came of age to be King,” she explains. “That’s the tradition, you know, is that if the ruler is still alive and well when their descendants are adults, and expects to stay that way even after the heir comes of age, the children spend some time in a trade or service to familiarize themselves with how the nation is built. Usually it’s the military, but not always.” She shrugs. “My cousin Brady went to spend his term with the priesthood, but his brother Owain’s with a theatre troupe, while the twins both plan to go to university. It all depends.”  
  
“So how’d you earn the scar, then?” Azura asks. “I thought the last war on this continent ended twenty years ago.”  
  
The King shrugs. “I got careless in a skirmish with bandits on the Ylisse-Plegia border,” she says. “One of the bastards cut through a chink in my armor with his dagger. I’m lucky he missed my lung." She reached up and touched it, lingering on the memory. Then she chuckles, as if chiding her past self for her carelessness. "Still hurt like a son of a bitch, though.”  
  
Azura hums. "How dashing," she comments. "And I imagine you were the hero of the hour in the rest of your battles, then? The young woman prince, come to save the day?"  
  
"What an image you have of me!" the King remarks, barking a short laugh. "No, nothing of the sort. I merely did what I could to fulfill the promise of leadership I made to my unit. They pledge their lives to me, but in return for that promise, I swear to make it so it never comes to that. A superior protects her subordinates, and so forth."  
  
"So everyone will die for each other?" Azura questions, then shakes her head. "I've never understood soldiery." Then again, Azura's never known anyone she'd die for.  
  
"It isn't for everyone." The King admits. "But it's my job, the job of the King, to ensure that none who don't wish it need to give their lives."  
  
She kneels before Azura, starts taking off the beautiful slippers she'd gifted earlier, giving Azura room to move away if she doesn't want this. (Azura does nothing of the sort.) The King's calloused fingers feel rough against the skin of her ankle. Slowly, eyes locked with Azura's, she slides her hand up her calf, pushes up her gown ‘til her knee is exposed. She kisses it, just below the cap. Although the rest of the King is a tapestry of battles fought and won, life woven in veins and callouses, her lips are soft.  
  
Azura feels her face flush. She doesn't quite understand why.  
  
The King eases off both of her slippers, sets them aside with the gentleness one would use to place treasured jewelry or ceremonial armor on their respective displays. Azura holds up the hem of her nightgown with her fingers twisted in the faded fabric. The King stands.  
  
Her cheeks redden. It's a sweet look on her. Azura almost smiles— almost.

"You are staying here tonight, correct?" the King asks.  
  
"If her Majesty permits," Azura replies. The King chuckles, though her mouth is more a wince than a smile.  
  
"I'm glad," she admits, sitting down on the bed and helping Azura undo the billion-some tiny buttons on her dress. "But you needn't call me that. Hardly anybody does."  
  
"What else would I call you?" Azura pulls out of the fabric of the nightgown, empty air touching her skin in place of the body-warmed fabric. She waits, in her chemise, as the King takes the dress and folds it, places it on her bureau next to her gloves. She gives a thoughtful pause, hand on the lacing of her trousers.  
  
"My name," the King says. "Lucina."  
  
"Lucina," Azura repeats. It's strange upon her tongue.  
  
"You've said it before," the King points out. "When…"  
  
"I'd assumed it was just something you wanted in the heat of the moment," Azura admits. "I've never known a King who wished to be called by their first name by their concubines."  
  
"I'm not most Kings," the King replies. "And you're not my concubine."  
  
"That'll take some getting used to," Azura says.  
  
The King shrugs, removing her boots and leaving them half-laced beside the bureau. "It must be a big change."  
  
Azura nods. She lies back on the bed while the King changes into her nightwear, fingers idly fidgeting with the decorative lacy trim on her chemise. Soon enough the King joins her, takes a strand of her hair and idly plays with it.  
  
"You're a very strange king, at least in my experience," Azura tells her.  
  
"I don't think I mind that," the King— Lucina, and the name feels sweet but strange upon Azura's tongue— replies. Azura rolls it around like a marble in her mind, testing it on her tongue behind her teeth. The roll of the L. The hiss of the soft C. The hum in the N. Names are beautiful things, and Azura wonders why it took until Lucina to realize such.  
  
It took until Lucina to realize a lot of things, though, so perhaps she shouldn't be surprised.  
  
They're quiet. It's nice. The King's arms are warm around her, strong in their weight but gentle, too. Azura rests but sleep doesn't come, but she's alright with that— and whenever she casts her mind to what may happen, she finds no darkness in her future. She can imagine no hands on her wrists, knees in her gut, breath in her ear, sweat of another body cooling on her skin. She can think of the times where that was her reality if she chooses, but it feels like the memories are creatures pressing against the golden dome of safety that Lucina's arms bring. Here, it is safe. Here, she is wanted.  
  
"May I kiss you, Azura?" Lucina murmurs. _Lucina_ , Azura thinks. It's the kind of name you'd find in a book of famous queens. It suits her.  
  
Azura hums. "What?"  
  
"May I kiss you," she repeats. Her voice is a warm buzz across Azura's jaw. "I won't until you say yes."  
  
"Yes," Azura murmurs back. "As many times as you wish. I am yours."  
  
"I don't want to kiss you because you're mine," Lucina protests. "I want to kiss you because you're beautiful and kissing is nice, and I may not know what this makes us in terms of words, but I know, at least, that to kiss you would make me very happy."  
  
"Then you may kiss me," Azura replies. "Because kissing is nice, and I may not know either, what this makes us, but I know that being kissed would make me happy."  
  
And Lucina smiles, and kisses her, warm and softer than she ever expects it to be. She tastes the scar in Lucina's lip when she pulls away, and when Lucina presses their foreheads together. She kisses Azura's nose, next, then her cheeks, her chin, her eyelids, her brow. Azura feels a soft laugh bubbling from her lungs when they shift and she's lying on top of Lucina instead of on the bedcovers, and she lets it go. Her hair falls in sheets over both of them, long and powder-blue and Lucina has to reach up to pull a loose strand from her mouth— which she kisses again, just for good measure.  
  
"You're insatiable," Azura teases.  
  
"Kissing is nice," is all Lucina offers as an answer, but Azura can feel her smile when they kiss.  
  
Lucina's warm— hot, even, beneath Azura's hands. Her hand trails to the collar of her loose nightshirt, feeling the flush on the skin of her neck and collar. Azura kisses her neck, tongue feeling the heat on her skin, the slight tang of sweat. And yet it's intoxicating rather than disgusting, and for once her mind does not pray it'll be over quickly.  
  
"It is," Azura hums. "You're so very strange, Lucina."  
  
"I love it when you call me that," Lucina purrs, almost a growl, as her hand reaches up and strokes down Azura's spine. She shivers, but it's not in cold or fear.  
  
"You and your strange kingly ways," Azura continues. "You and your _may I_ and your lovely gifts, and making me enjoy kissing."  
  
"But kissing is nice," Lucina says.  
  
"Kissing _you_ is nice," Azura corrects her. "I don't want to kiss anybody else. Just you."  
  
Lucina smiles, and presses her smile to Azura's lips. "So you want this?"  
  
"I want this," Azura agrees. She does. She feels it with every fiber of her being— she _wants_ this. She wants the strange feelings Lucina gives her that she never thought she could feel. She wants Lucina's lips, her hands, her body. Her every nerve burns, and all she wants is the woman below her.  
  
But then she's on top, and her back is to the pillows. Lucina holds herself above her with one arm braced on the mattress, her free hand twining itself in Azura's hair. She licks her lips, face flushed, eyes burning with desire. She leans down and Azura breathes, lungs shaky, but there's a smile on her face to feel Lucina so close. It feels good. Strange. But her first instinct is to sink into it, to let herself feel good, rather than to pull away. And Lucina's tongue trails along her chin, kisses her just in front of her ear. And then, Lucina opens her mouth to speak.  
  
"I want this, too," she whispers. Azura shivers. She has never wanted anything more in her life.  
  
The King dives back in with intensity, fervor that reaches a fever pitch with every whimper, every moan Azura makes. The kisses go from quiet to loud, sloppy and open-mouthed and panting, wanting, Azura's hands clinging to every bit of Lucina she can have. Savoring is the furthest thing from her mind; she wants it all, and she wants it now. She wants Lucina to ravish her, cover her in kisses and marks, strip her bare of every stitch of clothing and pound her into the mattress, again and again, until Azura's nerves turn to pudding and she's a sloppy, fuck-drunk, moaning mess. She wants to feel Lucina in every crack and crevice she has. Lucina has made her ride a high that she didn't know existed, and she intends to ride it for every penny it's worth.  
  
Lucina tosses her nightshirt aside, leaves her sweaty, sun-bronze chest bare to Azura's eyes, and all the scars too— but Azura's not looking at her scars, she's grasping at the King's every muscle, as if trying to find purchase to connect their bodies. The heat burns between her legs, wanting, pleading. The pleas turn to gasps when Lucina's hands cup her waist, when she kisses her lips and lets Azura know that the same fire, too, burns in her.  
  
Lucina holds her steady, turns them both to the side. Azura's body moves without thinking, pushes her leg between Lucina's thighs. She breathes shakily, feeling so unbearably hot she's sure she must be sweating buckets, but the cool air over her lips while she fumbles with her chemise clears her head.  
  
Lucina kisses her, gently, helps her pull her chemise from her head, then kisses her collarbone. It's far from the first time she's been nude in the royal chambers, but it's the first time she hasn't felt the chill of the night air. Instead she's hot, she's so hot, and it feels she'll burst into flame if she doesn't get something to stoke the fire.  
  
And yet Lucina's hands on her are steady and sure as Lucina helps her lie back, as Lucina parts her legs and exposes the core of the heat, the air almost agonizingly cold— she's wet, primed, ready.  
  
She breathes. The fires simmer, still hot but no longer raging. Lucina's eyes are warm, a tempered fire of lust, but she speaks evenly to Azura.  
  
"I'll start slow," she says. "With my fingers. Do you want this, Azura?"  
  
Azura breathes. She sees Lucina's hand, bare of the gloves she usually wears, resting on Azura's thigh and prepared to begin. She's trimmed the rough edges, filed them to short, round nubs. She imagines it— pressure inside her, sensation, pushing her down onto the mattress.  
  
Pushing, pushing down. Breath on her ear. Hands on her waist, her wrists, her back. The back of her head, pushing her down. Spreading her legs. Stretching. Pain. Rushing blood and hurting, hurting like she's being torn in half, and twisted desire in her mind because this is what she wants, she wants to feel, and now she's feeling so why the Hell isn't she just taking it, huh? If this is what she wants then why does her body feel like it's screaming? If she just wants touch, just wants contact, then why the Hell is she being so picky?  
  
How dare she, then, how dare she ply herself around heavy hands and then reject it when she gets exactly what she wanted. Hate, twisting and burning, bile rising in her throat. And yet it isn't towards the hands, the phantoms of strangers, but towards herself. She deserves the pain, the angry, hateful part of her says. She deserves it.  
  
She doesn't feel hot anymore. She shivers, and it's not because she's excited. It's not until Lucina's hand comes up and touches her face, looking at her with concern and warmth, that she notices the tears running down her cheeks.  
  
"Azura," Lucina murmurs. She's far away, so agonizingly far away. "Are you alright?"  
  
Azura can't even make herself nod. She shakes her head.  
  
Lucina moves, but then stops. She pulls back. "May I hold you?" she asks.  
  
Nothing would make her happier. She nods. She curls in Lucina's arms, shivering even as the warmth of Lucina's hand rests, strokes up and down her back, cradles the back of her head, traces her shape. She's safe here, Azura reminds herself. And Lucina's touch on her back, fingers in her long hair, seems to wash away the pain of the memories.  
  
"It's alright," Lucina murmurs. "I won't touch you if you don't want me to."  
  
Azura's chest shakes. She clings to Lucina for a different reason now, craving contact, but sex? Sex is the furthest thing from her mind. But Lucina still holds her, whispers reassurances, promises, holds her like she truly is a shield from all the horrors the world has visited upon the woman in her arms.  
  
"I'm sorry," Azura sobs. "I'm sorry, I'm— I s-started thinking, and it all— it all— I felt it again and why couldn't I just _like_ it, I wanted this, I wanted— I _wanted_ it! I— I—" she hiccups, breaking into sobs that wrack her chest and leave her aching. And Lucina takes it all, holds her close, as tight as she dares, until they fade into miserable hiccups and Azura's eyes are puffy.  
  
"I wanted someone to touch me," she says, finally able to get a hold on her voice. It sounds clogged, thick with tears and yet she's sure she's run out. "I wanted to feel like I wasn't— like I wasn't just slipping through the cracks. But it hurt and no matter how many people s-said it was good, every time—" she takes a shaky breath— "Every time it hurt me and I didn't understand why, because— because I _wanted_ it, but I don't, but—" she almost growls in frustration, and presses her face into Lucina's chest.  
  
Lucina's quiet. She strokes Azura's hair. Azura clings tighter, as if terrified fate will rip away Lucina like it ripped away every other good thing she's had in her miserable gods-damned life.  
  
"I wanted _you_ ," Azura whispers, pulling her face back and cupping Lucina's cheeks. She knows she must look terrible, puffy eyes and a runny nose and a chin that won't stop shaking, but really, nobody looks beautiful when crying. "I wanted you, Lucina. I wanted to pleasure you and— and I wanted you to pleasure me, like you keep asking, but I keep saying no because I'm scared, I'm so scared it'll be like it was before, even if— even if I know you're not like that." She breathes, breathes again. "I wanted to. But I can't, and I don't know what's wrong with me."  
  
Lucina kisses her head. It just makes Azura want to crumple further, to be met with kindness and love now when breaking down in such a way, before, would've been incomprehensible, would've been met with a brush-off at best and getting thrown back to the streets at worst. She's seen it happen.  
  
And yet, Lucina is here— holding her, rubbing warmth back into her body, whispering words of reassurance.  
  
"There's nothing wrong with you, Azura," Lucina murmurs. "You're wonderful. You're brilliant. You didn't deserve any of the abuse you've been through, any of the atrocities committed against you."  
  
Azura sniffles. "You make it sound like a crime," she says, trying to pull herself back together.  
  
"It _is_ a crime," Lucina says, hugging her tighter. "What was done to you is a _crime_ , Azura. To act as if one owns another, as if one is owed sexual pleasure merely because of status, and to go about unquestioned, is a crime. To touch another sexually without their consent is a crime. To ignore another's discomfort, pain, or requests to stop is a crime. To assume consent if the environment is unsafe for another to say no is a crime. What all those people did to you, from when you were young and didn't know better until you were older and were powerless to stop it, is a crime. And were they Ylissean citizens, I'd see them rot in prison and then rot in a cemetery and then rot in Hell as soon as I learned their names and faces."  
  
She says the last part with such fervor, such conviction, that it leaves Azura speechless. And then all she can do is cry again, a new round of sobs wracking her chest. And Lucina holds her through it all, her arms a shield and Azura the precious thing that it protects.  
  
They don't end up making love that night, but Azura does fall asleep in Lucina's arms, with Lucina's name on her lips, beneath thick bedcovers that are starting to feel more and more like home.


	6. The Old Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I think it was easier when I was a whore,” she mutters. “Is it too late to go back to that?”_
> 
> _“Perhaps not, but I’d miss you,” Lucina says. Azura rolls her eyes. It feels strange that she can do that— like living the life she has now, with Lucina, is still a dream. It still all feels new and scary, but she's finding more and more that if it's a dream, she doesn't want to wake up._

The weeks pass. Ylisstol summers are temperate, cooled by the wind off Daten Lake, but it's still hot, and it's the hottest time of the year. And yet the days are still getting shorter, still cooling at night, proof that autumn is, indeed, on its way. Tomatoes and okra and corn glisten in the marketplace wagons from the farmers out in the fields of southern Ylisse, and Azura knows because she's seen them, in person, on the days she takes walks around the city. She's grown quite familiar with it, on her walks. It's nice— she hasn't been this familiar with a city since she made her livelihood creeping through alleyways and approaching lingering strangers, selling a few minutes of her body for a few measly coins. Strange, as a lot of things are, but nice.  
  
The end of summer approaches. Azura carves out her place in the castle, in the lives of the royal family, as some assumed role that Azura doesn't know but doesn't want to question for fear of shattering it. It feels strange, being accepted so readily on the assumption she's Lucina's courtier. Perhaps that's just what Ylissean high society is like. If there are doubters, she's rubbing elbows with people at just the right levels that they can't say anything about it.  
  
That's not important, though. What's important is that Azura has a new dress.  
  
It's a soft shade of reddish-pink that makes the pink of her lips look more pronounced, and the length covers her ankles while not brushing the floor. It's the result of a fitting with Lucina's aunt Maribelle, because Azura's having lunch with Lucina and her parents and it is apparently bad form to wear the same dress to two different things so close together. Azura doesn't think she'll ever truly understand nobility, but she's pretty sure everyone else is just pretending, too.  
  
"Could you tighten it a little, ma'am?" Azura asks. "It feels like it's going to fall right off my chest."  
  
"Azura, darling, it's _supposed_ to be set low, to accentuate that lovely collarbone," Lucina's aunt replies. She takes a step over with a click of her high heels on the tiled floor and tightens the bodice quickly enough to make Azura wince.  
  
"How do you people live like this?" Azura muttered, resisting the urge to reach up and manually pull the neckline of the dress up to a more comfortable position. It's not the fact that it's low that bothers her, because she's certainly worn things far more revealing, but the fact that it's socially acceptable to wear it in public.  
  
"It _pains_ me that you even need to ask," Lady Maribelle says. She flounces to Azura's other side and plucks a bit of stray lint off Azura's gown, then plants her hands on Azura's shoulders and looks at Azura's reflection in the standing mirror. She hums to herself, then nods. "Yes, the red was a good choice. And it'll match Lucina's horrible doublet."  
  
"My doublets aren't horrible," Lucina protested. She's lounging (Lucina always lounges) on an armchair in Lady Maribelle's dressing room, which she insisted upon using for all of Azura's fittings— and she's assured Azura that there will be more. "Father says they look dashing."  
  
Maribelle sighs thinly. "Your father's idea of couture is ripping a sleeve off all his coats— not both sleeves, mind, _one_ sleeve."  
  
"I don't see your point."  
  
"I still say you would look simply stunning in a gown, Lucina," Maribelle hums as she makes more minute adjustments to Azura's dress. "The clothes make the woman, you know."  
  
"The expression is the clothes make the man," Lucina replies.  
  
"Well, if that's the case," Maribelle quips. "Then they must make the woman just as much, if not more, and certainly more efficiently and with better sense."  
  
Lucina can't come up with a witticism to reply, so she shifts her weight in the chair and looks down at her doublet. Red again— and it does match Azura's tea dress quite beautifully. If they stood next to each other, they'd look like a lesbian salt-and-pepper shaker set.  
  
Lady Maribelle, finally satisfied, steps back and clasps her hands. "You look ravishing, darling," she said to Azura, lips curled into a pleased smile. "Turn for me, please?"  
  
Azura turns. The skirt flares out just enough to show the layers of cream-colored linen layered below, then twists and settles once again with the slightly-desaturated red silk covering it all. The fabric swishes around her ankles. Her reflection in the mirror has her hands held up, just a bit, keeping them clear of the skirt as it twirls. Her fingers toy with the lace on the long sleeves. There's the faintest smile on her lips while she watches the skirt twirl, like it's some enchanting sight that she's not quite connecting to be her, and when she catches the sight of the smile in the mirror, it fades.  
  
She looks pretty. If she held her chin high and smiled and hid her laughs behind her delicate hand, she'd look just like the nobles Lady Maribelle expects to wear a dress like this. It would be easy to fake it, now that she knows the steps, like she used to falsify enjoyment and enthusiasm in the rare cases whoever she was with wanted her to. It would be easy to step into it like she was playing a role, and yet something stopped her. Something about the falsity left a bad taste in her mouth where it didn't before— maybe because she finally knows what it's like to tell the truth.  
  
"Amazing," Lucina breathes. "Azura, you look beautiful."  
  
Azura turns back and gives her a little smile. "You think so?"  
  
"Of course she does," Lady Maribelle says proudly. "It's well-tailored, well-made, and suits her so nicely. Now, I could work wonders with you and Lucina as a matched set, but since Lucina _refuses_ to work properly with any of my tailors, it seems that shan't happen today."  
  
"Your tailors never listen to any of my ideas," Lucina complains. "Don't they know the customer is always right? And I _am_ the king, after all." She folds her arms, not quite pouting with her face but definitely getting across the fact that she is.  
  
Maribelle sighs like the very thought pains her. "They say genius is never appreciated in its time," she says. "I can only pray the time for your particular brand will never come." Azura had the sense that Lady Maribelle had just delivered a devastating blow to her unsuspecting niece, and Lucina was too dense to get it.  
  
"I still say the plaid was a nice fabric," Lucina mutters. "It looked fine with the stripes to me."  
  
"I cannot _believe_ I'm related to you," Lady Maribelle groans. "Azura, darling, how do you put up with this? If Lucina weren't courting you, I'd say she needs to get her eyes checked— but, since she can recognize beauty when she sees it, it must only be an issue of taste in fashion."  
  
Azura's cheeks flush at the sudden onslaught of indirect compliments. "That's kind of you to say, ma'am," she manages. "Though I'm afraid I don't know enough to comment on her Majesty's fashion sense."  
  
“Mm.” Lady Maribelle hums acknowledgement, making some more minor adjustments. “Perfect. Not that I’d expect anything less from my handiwork, of course. Azura, dear, what do you think?”  
  
Azura fumbles for an intelligent-sounding response. “It’s beautiful,” she says. “I... don’t know what to say. Thank you, ma’am.”  
  
Maribelle clicks her tongue. “No need for any of that,” she says, obviously preening at the approval. “Simply stroll out there and leave everyone who sees you stunned with your natural beauty.”  
  
Lucina stands. “You’ve certainly stunned me,” she says, coming up behind Azura in the mirror. Her hand comes to rest on Azura’s waist, and Azura, reflexively, ducks her head at the praise. But she can’t hide her smile, and Lucina tilts her chin up to kiss the corner of it.  
  
“You’re being nice,” she mumbles.  
  
“I certainly try,” Lucina replies. “And don’t worry about trying to impress my parents, Azura. They already love you.”  
  
Azura wonders how she guessed that was bothering her. “I’m just,” she murmurs. “A bit out of my element.”  
  
“It’ll be alright,” Lucina promises. “And, aunt Maribelle, thank you for the tailoring.”  
  
“Oh, don’t thank me yet,” Lady Maribelle replies, putting away her notepad full of measurements and her boxes of pins. “Thank me when the dowry comes in."  
  
"The what?" Azura mutters, but she doesn't get the chance to ask.  
  
"We should get going," Lucina decides, tugging at her collar and flushing to the tips of her ears. Lady Maribelle smirks with some silent teasing aimed at Lucina that Azura can't decipher. "Wouldn't want to be late to meet with my parents, after all."  
  
"Oh, yes, go ahead." Lady Maribelle waves a hand like she's distracted by what she's doing, but Azura can't help but feel she's paying very close attention and only pretending to not care. "Knock ‘em dead, darling. Remember what I told you!"  
  
"False confidence is better than real humility?" Azura guesses.  
  
Maribelle preens. "We'll make a society girl of you yet," she says proudly. "Now, shoo! Make an impression! And remember to stand up straight, dear, you're a woman, not a mouse."  
  
Azura straightens her back self-consciously. Lucina offers her arm, a little smile on her face. And Azura takes it, and for a second, feels ready to take on the world.  
  
Lucina has long legs and a quick clip, but she slows it enough that Azura can match her speed. They’re not in a hurry— the tea place isn’t far from the castle— but their pace is quick, and Azura can guess it’s because Lucina’s as nervous as she is.  
  
“Your aunt Maribelle is so kind,” Azura comments. “It must run in the family.”  
  
Lucina chuckles abashedly. “She’s always been like that,” she admits. “And trust me, she’s thrilled to get you fitted for all these dresses. I think she just likes dressing people up. But she can only get family members so many frilly gowns before it gets kind of impractical.”  
  
“So she likes having a new living dressmaker’s dummy,” Azura sums up.  
  
“Pretty much.” Lucina shrugs, and Azura doesn’t know if she expected any different. Then Lucina chuckles. “You should’ve seen her when we adopted Nah when I was a kid. Nah went from wearing Morgan’s hand-me-downs to having a wardrobe full of enough frills and ribbons and lace to give someone a conniption. I suppose fitting dresses is more fun than fitting doublets and jackets and things.”  
  
Azura wouldn’t know. “All this noble business,” she mumbles. “It feels like I’m in another country.” Never mind the fact that she sort of is.  
  
“From what I’ve learned,” Lucina tells her as they exit the castle and make their way down the upper city streets, past manicured grounds and expensive noble houses. “It’s all posturing. Everyone’s pretending to be something they’re not, sometimes in multiple layers. You shouldn’t trust anyone you meet in court, man or woman or anything else, if they’re not married, and if they _are_ married, trust them even less.”  
  
It all makes Azura’s head spin. “I think it was easier when I was a whore,” she mutters. “Is it too late to go back to that?”  
  
“Perhaps not, but I’d miss you,” Lucina says. Azura rolls her eyes. It feels strange that she can do that— like living the life she has now, with Lucina, is still a dream. It still all feels new and scary, but she's finding more and more that if it's a dream, she doesn't want to wake up.  
  
The tea shop is in the nicer part of the city, though Azura can't ignore the glances sent their way from the passing nobles and citizenry. A florist tries to persuade Azura to buy a corsage when she and Lucina are waiting to cross the bustling road, and Azura clings tightly to Lucina to avoid getting swept away in the current of carts carrying goods and shipments. Pegasi fly overhead, belonging to knights and citizens alike, and one rider catches Azura staring and does a flashy loop in the sky that makes several people stop and stare. But then the moment's gone, and Lucina gently squeezes her hand. They've arrived.  
  
They've beaten Lucina's parents there. Lucina pulls Azura's chair out for her like a perfect gentlelady, and Azura gathers her skirts and perches, almost expecting the intricate chair to break under her. It does not.  
  
Azura glances around. The tea shop is a cozy little place, sandwiched between a dress shop and a bakery, and it's decorated in light colors and tiny patterns and lace. Nobles in tea gowns or doublets like Lucina's sit at tables with teapots and platters of finger food. Lucina murmurs something to a server in a printed apron, and the server nods, bows, and dashes away to start the tea. Azura sits next to her, and Lucina takes her hand again.  
  
"They already love you," Lucina tells her, as if she can read Azura's thoughts. "Meeting them at the festival wasn't so bad, was it?"  
  
"You did most of the talking there," Azura replies. "I'm still worried."  
  
"It'll be fine," Lucina promises, giving her hand a squeeze.  
  
Azura shifts. She's trying not to squirm and wrinkle her new dress, but she doesn't think she'll ever get used to wearing so many layers of underwear. Lucina's calloused thumb rubs across the tops of her knuckles, and the light touch is a comfort, however small. Azura watches as a few servers bring over a platter of thin cookies, four teacups on tiny saucers (because these are two things that Must Always Go Together, according to the Society Lessons Azura’s taking from Lucina’s aunt), a bowl of sugar cubes, and a tiny pitcher of cream.  
  
"It's just," Azura confesses, before she can stop herself. "I've never— I've never had a family."  
  
Lucina's eyes widen almost imperceptibly. "Never?"  
  
Azura takes a moment to formulate an abridged version. "My mother and I moved to the mainland down south when I was a baby, and it was just us for a while, but she died when I was six. Then it was just me. I suppose I had a family at some point, but…" she shrugged. "Those days are gone, and I've just got the hazy memories they left."  
  
Lucina's eyes are sorrowful. "I see," she says. "I can understand, then, why you'd be apprehensive about meeting my parents."  
  
Azura nods. Lucina squeezes her hand again. A server sets a teapot wrapped in a knit tea cozy on an iron trivet in the middle of the table. Steam curls out from the spout, and Azura smells lemongrass. (Lady Maribelle would be thrilled that Azura remembered both of those words.)  
  
"They'll love you, I promise," Lucina says. "But if you ever feel overwhelmed, just let me know, and I'll cut the meeting short. Does that sound alright?"  
  
What did Azura do to deserve someone as wonderful as Lucina? Azura nods again, and squeezes Lucina's hand in return.  
  
Lucina's parents enter the building. "So sorry we're late," her father apologizes. He's dressed more casually than he was the last few times Azura's seen him, where he wore the official first meeting in all his nice kingly regalia, or the green-and-gold doublet from the summer festival. Though that's not entirely correct— there was that one time she ran into him in the wee hours of morning, stealing down to the kitchens to find some food because she'd skipped dinner, and she'd run into the old king himself in his dressing gown, stuffing his face with cubed-up cheese. Azura hopes he doesn't remember that, but with her luck, he probably does.  
  
“Don't worry, father," Lucina promises. "Azura and I just got here as well." Azura’s pretty sure that’s just what you say to people who apologize for being late so they don’t feel bad about being late.  
  
Lucina’s mother smiles gently, lacing her fingers with her husband’s. Unlike the rest of the royal family that Azura’s seen— Lucina’s jumble of siblings, aunts, and cousins— she seems to favor purple rather than blue and green, with trims of orange and gold rather than silver. Much like Azura, she looks foreign, but obviously not from the same place. The old Queen’s skin is a deeper brown, with warmer undertones than Azura’s, and her face is shaped differently, with a wider nose and a flatter brow. Looking at them side by side, Azura can pull out which of Lucina’s features she got from which parent. She favors her father, clearly, with the same square jaw and defined nose and pointed chin and the ears that stick out, but Azura sees her mother’s features in the gentle droop of her eyelids and the soft sculpt of her lips, and her skin, a warm tan in-between her father’s peachy-pale and her mother’s deep golden brown. Beauty runs strong in this bloodline, it seems.  
  
“I’m thrilled to take this opportunity to meet you personally, Azura,” the old Queen says. “I’m afraid I know very little about you, other than the… unconventional, shall we say, method my daughter met you.”  
  
“Of course, that’s just like Lucina,” the old King comments with a fond chuckle. “Picking up strays left and right.”  
  
“Just like her father,” the old Queen replies, making her husband grin abashedly. Then she looks back to Azura, those dark eyes gentle but unmistakably intelligent, as if Azura is a tome she can read, scouring for information and retaining every bit she can find. The smoky gray jewel in her silver circlet almost glitters like a third eye, giving this older woman the look of some sort of seer. A fateweaver, a term Azura dimly remembers having meaning in her birthplace but nowhere else, especially not Azura’s memory.  
  
“Regardless,” the old Queen says, and the illusion is gone as soon as Azura blinks, “I’m always delighted to meet more of Lucina’s friends. She has quite an interesting bunch of them, so I don’t doubt you’ll be among good company.”  
  
Azura finds her voice while Lucina busies herself pouring tea into the teacups. “I can’t say I’ve met any of them yet,” she admits. “Everything’s still… very new.”  
  
“Ah, of course, you’re from outside Archanea,” the old King recalls, dropping a few more sugar cubes than Azura would think is appropriate into his teacup. “Hoshido?”  
  
“Valla,” Azura corrects him. “But my mother and I left when I was still very young. I grew up in Cyrkensia.”  
  
The old Queen nods, like she’d suspected as such. “A shame what happened to Valla,” she commented. “Though I suppose you wouldn’t remember much.”  
  
Azura’s ears burn. “Yes, ma’am,” is all she can say. Under the table, Lucina squeezes her hand for reassurance. Azura squeezes back, and feels a little better. The old Queen takes a sip of her tea, and Azura, remembering that she’s probably expected to do so as well, lets go of Lucina’s hand to pick up her teacup and take an experimental sip. It tastes like hot water and very little else.  
  
Lucina’s father, thankfully, changes the subject. “Lucina tells me you’re a dancer,” he says. “Have you had the opportunity to sample Ylissean dances?”  
  
That, she can answer. “Briefly,” she says. “At the summer faire. It was quite a sight to behold— I could swear those dancers were glowing.” Truth be told, Azura remembered the food at the faire the best. The fireworks show and the pegasus races and the music and dance were all well and good, of course, but free food was free food.  
  
The old Queen leans forward. Azura can practically see the gears in her head turning, and suppresses the instinct to bolt. “Would you be interested in learning Ylissean dance yourself?” she asks. The tone of her voice makes it sound like a hypothetical, a light curiosity like asking her if she _might_ _ever_ want to do _something_ at _some_ point in her life, but Azura’s survival for over half her life has depended on her ability to read people, and especially people who plot.  
  
“I… suppose I would,” Azura says carefully. “Might I ask why, ma’am?”  
  
Lucina snaps her fingers. “Oh, of course, the Vernal Gala,” she remembers. “It's coming spring, isn't it?” Shouldn’t that be one of those things Lucina’s supposed to immediately know rather than having to recall it?  
  
“In another six months, in fact,” the old Queen says. “Just because the paperwork that you have to do is completed, Lucina, doesn’t mean you can let yourself forget. We’re hosting this year, after all.”  
  
Lucina fidgets with the handle of her teacup. “I didn’t forget,” she promises. “I’ve been thinking on other things, is all.”  
  
The old Queen hums, obviously seeing right through Lucina’s bullshit but not bothering to bring it up. “Well, there’s been a change in plans— one of Madame Olivia’s dancers is retiring and won’t be able to perform this year, leaving her in need of a replacement if the show is to go on. She could always train one of her students for the role, but she's told me that an alternative would be to find an experienced replacement…"  
  
Azura’s heart stops. _Oh, no, she means me,_ she thinks. Suddenly her tea seems very difficult to swallow, but she’s not quite sure why.  
  
“It’s voluntary, of course,” the old Queen continues. “But I thought I might mention it to you, Azura, hearing you’re a dancer.” Azura almost wants to mention that the type of dancing she did was the kind that didn’t involve much clothing, and thinks better of it.  
  
Lucina frowns. “Mother, did you arrange this just so you could ask Azura to perform?”  
  
“Of course not,” the old Queen promises. “I just thought I should mention it, while we’re here.”  
  
Lucina looks unconvinced. “How enterprising,” she says.  
  
“Quite,” the old Queen replies, looking more than a little cheeky. “Anyway, Azura, I suggest you give it some thought. It would be a big help to Madame Olivia.”  
  
“And if you want to learn Ylissean dances— any dances, really— I can’t think of anyone better to learn from,” the old King adds. “Olivia’s an expert.” Azura’s beginning to notice a pattern. Either everyone in this family’s social circle really is is an expert in their field, or both Lucina and her father have a habit of talking up everyone they know regardless of actual skill.  
  
Azura’s throat feels dry. But what’s she so afraid of? It’s just dancing. She’s danced before, performed in front of crowds without breaking a sweat. There was no reason for her to be nervous, especially if this teacher was as much of an expert as the old King said. And maybe learning a new style of dance will do her good— give her something to think about, to do in her spare time. Besides, Azura likes dancing. She should just suck up her stupid nerves and agree to it so she’d stop wanting to chicken out.  
  
So she nods, and stops her idle picking at the ornate ceramic curls on the teacup in her hands. “Of course, I’ll do it,” she says. “Really, I’m glad to help.” And she doesn’t need to bother thinking about why she’s so anxious.


	7. First Steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Azura tries to pry. "Is this about the gala coming up?" she asks. "It being your first gala as king, and all."_
> 
> _That's exactly it, and the way Lucina's jaw tenses tells Azura she's right on the nose._

Luckily for Azura, neither of Lucina's parents ask her any more difficult questions. She does learn quite a bit about this upcoming gala— it happens annually on the first day of spring, with Ylisse hosting in even-numbered years and Plegia in odd-numbered years. The royal families and other important figures from both countries all make the trip out to take part in a day of not only partying and socializing, but networking. It's as much a diplomatic affair as it is a social one, and as such, it involves quite a lot of preparation, especially since it's Lucina's first year hosting it as the king— though in Lucina's lifetime, it's become more of a family reunion than a diplomatic meeting.  
  
Azura can imagine the pressure. Lucina, obviously, doesn't want to think about it.  
  
They take a walk around the city after finishing lunch and parting ways with Lucina's parents. Ylisstol in general is nicer than a lot of the cities Azura's spent time in— quite a bit of it is new construction from the foundations and up, rather than older buildings repaired over the generations. The paving stones are all laid tight, with little room for dirt and weeds to poke through, and the streets are wide enough that there's not a lot of congestion. The buildings are different sizes and colors, perhaps, but purposefully so, and though the city rises and falls with the landscape and the roads curve and twist, it doesn't feel like a maze. Metal grates cover gutters sloping downhill on either side of the streets to lead wastewater into storm drains.  
  
But Ylisstol isn't all human construction and uniform lines. Trees line some of the more residential streets, granting shade from the bright Ylissean sun, ivy grows both on trellises and on walls and around columns, and shallow box gardens full of flowers hang from second-story windows. It's a kind of very deliberate balance between organic and orderly— orderly enough to not look wild and untamed, but not so orderly so as to look completely devoid of originality. But Azura doesn't know enough about city planning to do anything but admire it for how it looks.  
  
Lucina notices her looking around as they walk, arm in arm like a couple out for a stroll in the mid-afternoon warmth. "Most of the city looks like this," she says. "When my grandfather was king, huge sections of the city crumbled into ruin because so many able-bodied folk had been conscripted to fight a war against Plegia, and almost all of the rest of it was destroyed in the rioting against the crown."  
  
Azura had heard that kind of story before— happens every ten years or so in Windmire, for one reason or another, probably because Nohr is just kind of a bad place to live. "The place seems to have recovered remarkably well," she comments.  
  
"My aunt Emmeryn's doing," Lucina nods. "When my grandfather died and she took over the crown, she stopped the assault on Plegia and brought all the soldiers home, sent them back to their jobs, their families. It was rough at first— the people didn't believe her. Scared it'd happen again, I always figured. But she built Ylisse back up again, one stone at a time, and then made it better. Obviously I wasn't born then, but if you look at any history book, they've got drawings of how the city used to look, and it's nothing like how it does now."  
  
"Your aunt seems responsible for a lot of the prosperity here," Azura says. "She must've been a great queen."  
  
Lucina nods solemnly. She watches the breeze rustle the trees overhead, starting to show smatterings of yellow and orange amidst the summer green. "My aunt is a lot to live up to," she admits. "So is my father, even if he doesn't agree with me. He keeps saying he didn't do much. But there's something to be said for keeping the peace, I think, even if it was there to begin with."  
  
"You've said as much," Azura recalls. "Do you doubt it?"  
  
"No, of course not," Lucina says first. Then she pauses, turning back to look at the way the castle, the crown jewel of Ylisstol, rests uphill, perched on top of the cliff overlooking the gleaming blue lake and the city below like a benevolent guardian. Her teeth worry at the flesh on the inside of her lip.  
  
Azura tries to pry. "Is this about the gala coming up?" she asks. "It being your first gala as king, and all."  
  
That's exactly it, and the way Lucina's jaw tenses tells Azura she's right on the nose. But Lucina shakes her head, and gives Azura a smile that looks genuine, but may very well not be. "It's months away," she promises. "I'll take you back to the castle."  
  
"You're not staying?" Azura frowns.  
  
"I've got some things I'd like to do in town," Lucina says, seeming purposefully vague. But Azura doesn't question it, and lets Lucina turn them around and take her back through the city streets.  
  
Azura won't admit it, but she needed the time to herself after the lunch with Lucina's parents. She finds herself wandering the castle, pretending she has somewhere to be, past servants in black uniforms, knights in green livery, student and scholar mages in robes with gold scroll printed on the hems, and runners and delegates on errands to urgent to pay Azura much mind. Despite the unconventional way Azura came to join castle life, the castle staff seems content to not question it and treat Azura as they would any of their king's courtiers, which is for the best. Azura would rather not be noticed everywhere she goes.  
  
She wanders past halls full of paintings and portraits of people with curly hair and stick-out ears, wearing crowns or tiaras and ridiculous-looking formalwear, all hung in ornate frames with little placards saying who they were but not why they mattered. Azura could probably read about any of these people in the castle library, but she has better things to do with her time than read about an endless parade of dusty old names.  
  
She finds herself in the castle ballroom. The stone floors are polished, mosaic tiles laid so tightly one would have to rip up the whole floor in order to get at one segment. Columns line the walls, arches framing little alcoves with cushioned benches and statues of dancing animals— pegasi, mostly, but Azura spots other animals among them, and chubby-cheeked winged children with curly hair and pointy ears. Gilding glimmers everywhere Azura sees. A long skylight runs along the length of the room, letting sunlight pour in, outlined in rectangles by the iron framework. Big crystal chandeliers full of candles, extinguished since they’re not in use, hang from the ceiling. She wonders who maintains it all, and how much their hands ache at the end of the day.  
  
There’s a raised stage area at the end of the ballroom, tucked into where the room’s architecture slopes downward, into a curve. It’s where the musicians would go during a party, the shape of the big alcove magnifying the sounds they make. There are no musicians there now, but there’s a young man dancing, his bare feet silent on the polished wood, so deep into what he’s doing that he doesn’t notice Azura until she’s just a few steps from the stage. He freezes, then stumbles, and then straightens himself out and tugs imaginary wrinkles out of his shirt.  
  
“Hello there,” he says, clearing his throat more than a little awkwardly. “I’m sorry, did you want to use the stage?”  
  
“No, no, it’s my fault,” Azura insists. “I didn’t realize anyone was in here.”  
  
“And I can’t fault you for that, my lady,” the young man chuckles. “Usually, the place is empty. But it’s so lovely, I can’t resist doing a few steps whenever I come visit. Though a few steps usually lead to more…” he sounds self-admonishing, but not excessively so, and as far as Azura can read him, his smile looks genuine.  
  
“Your dancing is lovely,” she says. “I can’t say I’m that familiar with the style, though.”  
  
The young man quirks an eyebrow. “You dance?”  
  
Azura hesitates. “In a manner of speaking.”  
  
“Ah!” the young man realizes. “You’re Lucina’s new courtier. She’s mentioned you.”  
  
“You know the King?” Azura asks, frowning. Was it really all that typical for citizens to call Lucina by name? But then, Azura shouldn’t really be surprised— Lucina had already disproved quite a few of Azura’s expectations of kings, so this was just another to add to the list.  
  
“I’ve met her here and there,” the young man shrugs. “Specifically, I’m dating her cousin. You may call me Inigo,” he says, by way of introduction, giving her a bow with a flourish. “And might I have the honor of your name, my lady?”  
  
“Azura, though I’m no lady,” Azura tells him, bobbing her head in response, as is polite— or at least that’s what Lady Maribelle taught her, and Azura’s not going to dispute that. “I apologize for interrupting your dance, Inigo. I’ll leave you to it.”  
  
“Oh, think nothing of it,” Inigo insisted. “Art exists to be seen, no? Your entrance merely surprised me. In fact, if the lady wishes, I’d like very much if she continues to grant me the pleasure of her company.” He gave Azura a gleaming smile, all too charming and all too genuine. Azura’s met men before who wear flirtation as their armor, fancying themselves casanovas as they move from woman to woman, shrugging off rejection as an extenuating circumstance. Inigo’s too sincere for that— perhaps he thinks that’s what he is, but there’s eagerness bare in his smile. He’s not much younger than Azura, but he gives off a bright kind of innocence that makes him feel more like a boy than a man. Azura hasn’t encountered very many of those.  
  
Azura shrugs. “If you like,” she says. Inigo’s smile brightens. Azura half-expects to see sparkles falling from his clothes. He jumps down from the stage in one movement, lean and toned from years of dancing. He’s taller than Azura— but then, so is just about everybody she’s met.  
  
“So, you dance,” Inigo says. “How long have you done it?”  
  
“Most of my life,” Azura admits. “I haven’t started learning traditional Ylissean style yet, but I’m supposed to meet someone named Madame Olivia to teach me.”  
  
Inigo grins. “What a coincidence,” he says. “That’s my mother! Then you must be the dancer that the old Queen found?”  
  
“I suppose I must be,” Azura replies.  
  
“That’s wonderful news!” Inigo says excitedly. “Unfortunately my mother is busy today, but the troupe meets for lessons at her studio tomorrow, so you should stop by and tell her then.”  
  
“I’ll do that,” Azura agrees. “I just hope I can keep up.”  
  
“Ylissean dance really isn’t difficult, at its core,” Inigo admits, climbing back up onto the stage. “Once you know the basic steps, of course.” He snaps his fingers to an imaginary beat and does a set of dance steps with kicks, turns, steps, and spins. “It’s when you combine it with moving around and coordinating with other dancers doing different things that it gets complicated, and then you can mess yourself up because you’re watching what someone else is doing and they’re doing a different part.”  
  
“So that’s why you practice in groups,” Azura guesses. “So you can practice what to do in relation to everyone else.”  
  
“Naturally,” Inigo replies. “But as long as you remember what to do at each beat of the music, you’ll be fine. And as long as everyone else does what they’re supposed to be doing, of course. Come up here, I’ll show you the first steps.”  
  
And so the afternoon passes, and the squares of sunshine coming in from the skylight make their way across the ballroom floor, going from the white of midday to the orange of sundown. The steps aren’t hard, just new, and Inigo is a patient teacher, so she learns quickly. They are supposed to be partners for the dance at the gala, Inigo says, so it’s only right of him to help her prepare for her part. But they can’t keep the ballroom forever, so they excuse themselves when the Queen comes by with an army of party planners to discuss things for the gala, and they part ways when the clock chimes seven and Inigo says his mother’s expecting him at home. He takes his leave on the arm of a young blonde man— Lucina’s cousin Owain— and they disappear through the halls of the castle. And so Azura’s alone again, but she can’t find it in her to be lonely. Inigo is lovely company, and some of his sunshine lingers even when he’s gone.  
  
Azura steals a stuffed roll from the dining hall when they start to serve dinner, skipping the socialization of the evening meal in order to spend the evening in her room. Inigo had told her they were performing Daughter of the Ice Dragon, a section of an epic poem adapted into a dance, which Azura isn’t familiar with. Per his suggestion, she’d found herself a copy of the whole book to read through to give herself some context, and once she’s changed into a nightgown, she curls up in the armchair with her dinner and her book and sets about ignoring the rest of the world.  
  
She turns out to be very good at that— and Daughter of the Ice Dragon turns out to be very good at keeping her attention. She’s glad she picked the book up, since she’s supposed to be playing Ninian, the titular daughter of the Ice Dragon, but has little to no idea of what feelings the scenes of her story with Eliwood were supposed to bring out. Inigo had said he knew the part of Eliwood inside and out, so Azura just hopes she can keep up and match his skill.  
  
A knock on her door tears her away from the story. “S’me,” slurs a voice from the other side— Lucina, her voice both very husky and very drunk. Azura dog-ears her page, sets her book aside, and answers the door. Lucina’s leaning on the frame, her cheeks flushed and her grin lopsided, her shirt collar crooked and her top button undone. She stands up straight, resting one hand on the doorframe in what might be an attempt to look cool and collected.  
  
“Evenin’, Azu-ra,” Lucina says, drawing out the first syllable of her name. “You get dinner?”  
  
“I’ve eaten, yes,” Azura replies, frowning. “Are you drunk?”  
  
Lucina pulls her flask off her belt and shakes it near her ear. “Yeah,” she decides. “But if I had more whiskey, I’d still be drinkin’. Can’t be drunk if you’re still drinkin’.”  
  
It’s drunk logic. Azura sighs. She can smell the whiskey from a foot away. “You should get some water and go to bed,” she says. “Not waste your time talking to me.”  
  
“I jusht—“ Lucina hiccups. “Just wanted to make sure you got back safe. City’s big, n’all.”  
  
“You walked me here,” Azura points out.  
  
“Did I?” Lucina looks genuinely confused. “Aw, that was nice a’ me. Anyway, I wanted to see you again too, ‘cause, I like you a lot, an’ I think about you a lot, and, I like making sure that you’re doing okay.”  
  
Azura’s ears flush. “You’re drunk. Sit down before you hurt yourself.” She steps aside to let Lucina in, never mind that she’s in her nightgown. While Lucina stumbles to drape herself over one side of the bed, Azura picks up the dressing gown from the hook on the washing chamber’s door and ties it over her nightgown. It was getting cold anyway.  
  
“It’s true, though,” Lucina says into the cushion. “You’re sho lovely and have a sweet and nice voice and very soft hands. I really liked holding them when we went to the summer festival. It’sh like you’re made of soft pillows and sweet flowers. Both. Like those things that grandmothers have on their couches to hide the old lady smell.”  
  
Azura has no idea what she’s talking about, and thus no idea why she’s still blushing. She sighs, and gets Lucina a glass of water. “Sit up,” she tells Lucina, who pushes herself upright. “Drink this— all of it. You’ll hate yourself less in the morning.”  
  
“I’m no stranger to hangovers,” Lucina snorts, but she takes the glass and drinks it anyway. She grins blithely at Azura, all flushed cheeks and chipped teeth. “I like when you tell me to do things,” she says. “Assertiveness is—“ she hiccups again— “I like it a lot. I jus’ love a woman who could kick my ass.”  
  
“It’s good to know things about yourself,” Azura manages. “Gods, you’re in no fit state to wander back to your chambers yourself.”  
  
“Aw, sh’sweet of you to worry,” Lucina chuckles. “Lissen— lissen— Azura. Lissen to me.”  
  
Azura rolls her eyes and sits herself on the bed. “What is it?”  
  
Lucina finishes her water, licks her lips, and looks very purposefully at Azura. “I like you an awful lot,” she says. “I dunno if it’s that I wanna kiss you, or I jush’ wanna give you a good life, or maybe it’s both? I dunno. But you make me happy in here. Sho— I’m gonna keep you around, if that’s okay with you.”  
  
Azura curls her fingers in her dressing gown. She’s drunk, she doesn’t mean it, she tells herself. And yet the earnestness, the words she’s saying, make Azura’s heart flutter. She bites at the inside of her cheek, folding her hands on her lap.  
  
“I just want to do… good,” Lucina finishes. “And I want to do you good, too. Not in the sexy sense— or, well, kind of— but only if you want to. I’m still hoping you’re my friend.”  
  
Azura lets her shoulders relax. “We’re friends,” she says. “If you’re okay with the fact that I don’t know how.”  
  
“No one knows a gods-damned thing,” Lucina snorts. “We’re all fuckin’ shit idiots, dumb as dirt, stumblin’ around in the dark. But that’sh not so bad, I guess, ‘cause love is dumb, too, but I like it a lot. Like you.”  
  
Azura shakes her head. “You’re not making any sense.”  
  
Lucina laughs. “Cheers!” she says gleefully. “Wish I had more whiskey. We could share.”  
  
“I don’t drink hard liquors,” Azura replies. “Here, let me— stay here tonight. I don’t mind.”  
  
Lucina shifts, trying to help Azura pull the covers back. “You really don’t?” she asks, toeing off her boots and pushing herself under the bedcovers. “I can have someone lead me back to my chamber, if you don’t want me here.”  
  
“But, I do want you here,” Azura replies, and it’s the truth. “We’re friends, aren’t we? I may not know much about friendship, but letting a friend wander the castle halls, drunk out of her wits, doesn’t sound like a very friendlike thing to do.”  
  
Lucina hums. “Guess not,” she admits. “You’re better n’ you think you are, Azu-ra. No matter how much you don’ want people to see.”  
  
Azura’s not sure how that makes her feel. She acts like she didn’t hear it, and gets into bed and blows out the bedside candle instead. “Sleep well,” she says. Lucina mumbles something else in return that Azura doesn’t catch, but she figures it’s a goodnight. So Azura turns over in bed so she’s facing Lucina, already close to sleeping with the moonlight through the window falling on her face, and figures she might be okay, after all.


	8. Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“When I was a dancer,” Azura begins. “We’d perform for noble men, and occasionally, if one particularly rich and young came, the other girls would peek from behind the curtains and sigh. I never knew what they were talking about.”_
> 
> _Lucina hums. “So what does this mean for us?”_
> 
> _“Not sure,” Azura says. “But I find that I’m not sure of a lot of things around you.”_
> 
> Azura learns something new.

Azura wakes with a heavy weight wrapped around her body. She feels sour stickiness in her mouth only an instant before the smell of pungent whiskey hits her nose, thick and cloying enough she can taste it in her throat, mingled unpleasantly with sweat. She coughs, pushes away from whatever foulness she woke with and sits up, trying to fill her lungs with cleaner air. Her eyes water from the stench. Worse still, now it’s on her, too, and probably seeped into the fabric of her clothes.  
  
Still half-asleep, she pads to the chamber window and undoes the latch. The wired glass window swings open on its little brass hinge. Azura winces against the bright light, her eyes still gummy with sleep. She rubs them despite how futile an exercise that is, gives up, and dunks her hands in the basin in the corner instead. The cold water helps. She rubs some on her face to chase off her drowsiness, and dries her hands and face on a towel.  
  
In her bed, Lucina stirs, and Azura remembers the previous night. Lucina coming to her, drunk, rambling about liking Azura and wanting to do good. Azura immediately wants to forget again— now she has to deal with that. Though it’s some consolation that Lucina’s probably forgotten what she said. She had been _very_ drunk, after all. Azura decides she won’t mention it unless Lucina brings it up.  
  
Lucina grumbles incoherently, clumsily holding up her arm over her face to block the sunshine. She sits up, rubs her face, and squints at the room. When her eyes settle on Azura, she blinks. “Azura?”  
  
“Good morning to you too, your Majesty,” Azura replies, combing through her hair. “Feeling alright?”  
  
“My head hurts,” Lucina groans, rubbing her temples. “Why is it so bright in here?”  
  
“That would be the sun,” Azura says. “It rises in the east every morning and gives us light and warmth.”  
  
“I hate it,” Lucina says flatly. “I’m the King of Ylisse. How dare it give me a headache.”  
  
“You ought to make it illegal,” Azura suggests. “That’ll teach it.”  
  
Lucina grunts, pushing herself out of the bed and getting to her feet. She sways a little, but doesn’t fall over, even if she’s not moving with her usual grace. She wipes the sweat off her forehead with her hand, pushing her fingers through her bangs until she can pull her diadem from her head, which she sets aside. Her clothes are wrinkled from sleeping in them. She shucks her doublet— this one is gray— and untucks her cotton shirt from her trousers. She flaps the fabric, trying to cool herself down. Her shirt has sweat stains on the chest, back, and underarms. In a strange way, Azura’s kind of glad to see this side of her— even Foreseer-King Lucina, who lounges everywhere she sits and manages to make everything she does look like a painting in motion, is not immune to hangovers and sweat-stained undershirts.  
  
She looks around, piecing together what happened. “I must’ve overindulged,” she mumbles. “Azura, did I—“ she hesitates. “I remember very little of what I said last night, but I apologize for intruding on your space and whatever I might’ve said or done to you. I take full responsibility—“  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Azura interrupts. “You didn’t do anything. You stumbled in here and I didn’t want to let you wander through the castle that unsteady on your feet, so I let you stay the night here.”  
  
Lucina looks visibly relieved. “I didn’t do anything… untoward?”  
  
“Not even a little,” Azura promises, relieved that she doesn’t have to bring it up. Perhaps she can just pretend it never happened, either, that it was just the ramblings of a drunk woman, that it meant nothing. Perhaps that’s for the best.  
  
Lucina pushes her sweaty hair back from her forehead and makes a face. “I apologize for making your bed reek of whiskey,” she says. “And… you,” she adds lamely.  
  
Azura shrugs. “No harm done,” she says. “I’ll have to try and sneak into the baths, though. Hopefully nobody asks any questions.”  
  
“You can use my bathing chambers,” Lucina says, clearly jumping at the chance to somehow make up for some misdeed she didn’t even commit. “They’re like the public baths, but obviously smaller, and private. It’s the least I could do to make up for imposing.”  
  
“You’re not imposing,” Azura says. “But if you insist, I suppose I’ll have to make do with the King’s private bathing chambers.”  
  
So Azura makes do with the King’s private bathing chambers, in the sense that it is, perhaps, the most luxurious bath she’s ever taken. They pump water from the reservoir through silver piping etched with runes to heat it up to the perfect temperature. The result is that the room is full of steam and the water is hot, but not so hot it burns, and Azura allows herself to sink into it. Her fingers rub over runes carved into the stone to keep the water warm. The bathing chamber is quiet; Lucina’s politely shooed off all the well-meaning servants and then occupied herself in the other room, with the sink and mirror and rack full of towels.   
  
Azura’s always liked water in any form. The whisperings of the ocean in the port town, waves on the shore when she’d practice dancing under the piers where no one could see, have always been dear to her. Even before then, she had hazy memories of clear puddles that she toddled through, of rain dripping off of roof tiles and onto marble bricks, of sticking her tiny hands into the slow-moving water of streams and rivers. It’s no surprise to her when the bathwater almost seems to welcome her, its surface rippling as her movement displaces what there was, and when the heat soaks into her pores and lifts out everything unclean.  
  
She won’t waste more time than necessary soaking in the feeling, though. She washes, very, _very_ thoroughly, until she’s confident that she no longer smells like the King’s whiskey sweat, and works her fingers through her long hair. She’s thoroughly soaked it and it’s adhering to her skin when she notices that Lucina hasn’t joined her.  
  
“What are you doing in there?” she calls. “Aren’t you going to bathe, too? You need it more than I do.”  
  
Lucina has undressed and wrapped herself in a robe, which Azura can see with her limited view through the arch into the vestibule. “I do intend to,” she says. “I’m waiting until you’re done. I assumed you’d want your privacy.”  
  
It’s an odd kind of thoughtfulness that strikes Azura somewhere unfamiliar. “I don’t mind,” she says, instead of expressing that. “You’ve seen me naked before. Like those times I sat in your lap and stroked your cock.”  
  
“This is different,” Lucina insists. “This isn’t sex, obviously.”  
  
“You mean to tell me, your Majesty,” Azura teases. “That you’ve never taken anyone in this very bathtub? I’ve been to orgies in tubs _half_ this size.”  
  
“That sounds crowded and confusing,” Lucina says.   
  
“I don’t remember very much of it.” Which was the truth— Azura tended to mentally check out during a lot of “group events” she’d been part of. “It’s your bathtub, though, and it’s certainly big enough for you to keep your distance, if that’s what you’re worried about. I promise I don’t mind.”  
  
Lucina shrugs. “If it’s truly what you want,” she says. “I’m more than happy to comply.”  
  
She steps through the archway as she says it. Her hair’s tangled, and she’s still sweaty. Azura can’t smell her from the other side of the room and over the lavender fragrances in the bath oils— which is a blessing, because Azura doesn’t want to smell whiskey and morning breath, and Azura thinks that the fragrance will do her good. She leans on the edge of the bath, elbows on the tiled rim, watches as her King removes her robe and steps, fully nude, into the steaming water with a held-in sigh.  
  
Azura leans her head on the rim, the water curling up around her chest. She’d forgotten how much she liked a good soak— one of the perks of being a concubine, at least most of the time, was access to high-society baths and being allowed and, more often than not, encouraged to spend time making herself as soft and pretty as possible. It varied from country to country and noble to noble, but something Azura had found was that people liked to be clean, and they liked their concubines clean, too.   
  
A splash from the other side of the bath. “Gods, I needed that,” Lucina breathes, shaking out her hair and splattering drips of water on the tile. “Nothing like a bath to chase away a hangover.”  
  
Azura lifts her head. “About that,” she brought up. “I hadn’t thought you one for drink.”  
  
Lucina waves a hand, sitting on the edge of the tub to massage oils into her skin— shimmering golden, scarred and calloused but no less graceful. “I only drink socially,” she said. “Though I don’t usually get that drunk. But I ran into friends from the arena at the tavern, and we swapped stories, and bought a round of drinks, and then another, and it sort of went from there.” She chuckles abashedly. “It’s not particularly becoming of a king, I admit. But we live in peacetime— what’s the harm in a little revelry?”  
  
Azura supposes she can understand. “Only socially?”  
  
“It’s no fun drinking alone,” Lucina explains. She snorts. “Drinking alone is for washed-out fools. Luckily I’m never short of drinking buddies— so I like to think that I don’t drink, so much as I celebrate.”  
  
“You celebrate a lot, then?” Azura guesses. “Seems there’s a lot to celebrate, on a given day.”  
  
Lucina hesitates. “Well,” she begins. Her face twists. She seems to grapple, momentarily, with telling Azura something before she shakes her head and smiles Azura’s direction instead. “I try to be grateful for the prosperity we have, so I can best hang onto it and preserve it, as is my job as the King.”  
  
Azura gets the sense that that’s not the whole story, but figures it isn’t her place to pry. “That’s a very cavalier way of doing things,” she says.  
  
Lucina shrugs. “I’m still young,” she says. “I may as well hold onto my youth while I have it. There will always be a tomorrow, true, but that’s no reason to not celebrate today, is it?”  
  
“Philosophical,” Azura comments. “Even hungover, you celebrate things?”  
  
“There are more ways to celebrate than drinking,” Lucina says, punctuating it with a roguish grin Azura’s way. Perhaps it’s the steam, but heat rises to Azura’s cheeks. She chuckles.   
  
“I suppose it figures that you’d be an expert in all of them,” Azura says. “Your Majesty.”  
  
Lucina chuckles humbly. The washing oil runs off her skin in rivulets. She’s as golden as the light hitting the jars of preserved herbs. The bath’s windows are set high and run along the length of the chambers, and sunshine pours through on the eastern side and creates a thin rectangle on the floor. The water is blinding where the light bounces off it. It casts ripples back on Lucina’s skin. Her form, Azura notices, is carefully maintained, and the picture of health— fat resting on her waistline and buttocks and thighs, giving way to strong, trained muscle further up in her chest and arms. The water and the oil shine on her skin as she washes away the smells of sweat and whiskey.  
  
Azura thinks about touching her, her hands roaming over the Lucina’s toned muscles, digging into the fat on her thighs, pressing their chests together. She thinks about being touched, too, the Lucina’s hands on her sides, holding her steady, firm but never painful. Lucina, tracing her shape like one runs their hand admiringly over soft bed linens. Lucina, hand coming to cradle the back of her head, whispering _may I_ with their foreheads touching, sinking into the kiss with the languor she uses to lounge in the bath. Lucina, her touch burning hot and yet leaving freezing cold as it roams over her shape, outlining her in warmth and drawing the shape of her out of the space she takes up, her touch bringing Azura back into reality and reminding her that she is not impermanent, she is not transitory, she is real and present and Lucina wants her there, and Lucina will hold, hold close to make sure that Azura stays in the space cut out tucked against her chest, the space where she belongs.  
  
Azura turns herself, lounges on the stone upper rim of the bath and pillows her head on her folded arms. Lucina ducks her head under the water and comes up with it in a long, heavy rope dangling from her head and a deep, dark shade of blue like the highlight the sun makes when it glances off a raven’s wings. She sighs in contentment as she cups her hands and massages the hot water into the pores of her face, washes away the hangover. Azura thinks again about Lucina’s hands in her hair, touching her cheeks, tracing her shape.  
  
Lucina’s caught her staring. She gives Azura a roguish grin. “See something you like?”  
  
Azura shakes her head, even though she absolutely has. “Just wondering what in the world you’ve done to me.”  
  
“Oh?” Lucina quirks an eyebrow, sitting on the edge of the bath to run a scraper down her legs. Hairless, Azura notices, which Azura supposes must be a cultural difference between Ylisse and Nohr, and even Ylisse and Hoshido. The nobles there seem to either be very prideful of their natural hair or care little for removing it; Azura and the concubines were expected to, and Azura never questioned it, but Lucina is the first Azura has seen of a royal taking such care in their appearance. Lucina, Azura figures, must be the exception in many things.  
  
“You made me enjoy kissing,” Azura says. “And when I look at you, I want you to touch me. And I want to touch you back, and kiss you, and have you kiss me.”  
  
“Most people call that attraction,” Lucina says. “I’m flattered.”  
  
“I always thought it was a myth,” Azura says, propping her cheek on one hand.   
  
Lucina shrugs. “Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom.”  
  
“When I was a dancer,” Azura begins. “We’d perform for noble men, and occasionally, if one particularly rich and young came, the other girls would peek from behind the curtains and sigh. I never knew what they were talking about.”  
  
Lucina hums. “So what does this mean for us?”  
  
“Not sure,” Azura says. “But I find that I’m not sure of a lot of things around you.”  
  
“You’ve said as much,” Lucina replies. She looks over at Azura again. She’s washed off all the sweat and whiskey. Her skin shines. Azura sees her arms and wants them around her form, sees those hands and wants them tracing her shape, sees those lips and wants them on her neck. She thinks about it and she burns, burns somewhere deep in her center. It reminds her of the night they got close, very close, but something went wrong and Azura couldn’t, couldn’t even make herself enjoy it. She feels herself shiver.  
  
Bathwater sloshes against Azura’s skin. Lucina’s moved closer, sits on the edge of the bath. She moves herself down a step, crossing her legs at the ankle, propping her elbows on the floor. Azura pulls back, sits up. Her hair falls over her face and floats suspended in the water.  
  
“I’ve never been attracted to anyone before,” Azura says. “If it’s as you say.”  
  
“Given what you’ve told me, I’m not surprised,” Lucina replies. She makes no move to come closer. Azura hesitates, and scoots closer herself, just a bit. Lucina’s arms are always warm. She’s smiling, just a little bit, and it’s both reassuring and inexplicably embarrassing. Azura ducks her head.  
  
“Don’t look at me like that,” she says. “This is ridiculous.”  
  
That blasted smile only grows, plays across Lucina’s lips. “Oh?”  
  
Azura huffs. “You’re turning me into some foolish blushing maiden. Making me _enjoy_ kissing— like a spell you’ve put on me so I won’t stop thinking about your kisses, your touches. How warm your arms always are. How…” she falters, and cuts herself off. One day, she’ll admit it. That day has not come.  
  
Lucina chuckles— low and husky, and Azura’s heard it before, but wonders when it got to make that feeling in her core stir so much. “You’re cute,” she remarks. “I didn’t know you could do that.”  
  
Azura groans, slumping onto her crossed arms. “Forget I said anything,” she said. “If you’re just going to make fun of me for it.”  
  
“No, no,” Lucina insists, though she’s still chuckling. “I’m sorry, really. It’s just— this is the most emotion I’ve seen on you since that time after the summer faire.”  
  
“Is that bad?” Azura frowns.   
  
“No, it’s good,” Lucina promises. “Don’t mind what I think. Keep talking— you were saying you’re attracted to me and don’t know how to handle it?”  
  
“Well, that’s my problem,” Azura says. “I don’t know how to be attracted to someone. I don’t know how to want them. All I know is that I want you, and it’s driving me crazy.”  
  
Lucina shifts in the bath. The bathwater sloshes; Azura’s gotten used to the temperature, so it’s no longer hot to her. Azura wants to take Lucina’s cheeks and kiss her stupid, or maybe make Lucina pin her down and ravish her until she can’t remember her name. She’s not sure. The fact that she has multiple mental paths from which to pick when she thinks about wanting, when she thinks about wanting Lucina, should probably tell her something, but she doesn’t know what it would say.  
  
“Well, if you want me,” Lucina says. “You could always ask.”  
  
It all hits her at once. Of course it’s that simple— of course she can just reach out and ask for what she wants. Lucina’s made that clear over the past months that if Azura desires anything, she’s welcome to ask and Lucina will see what she can do. What took Azura so long to realize? Why couldn’t she just ask for what she wanted?  
  
Azura licks her lips. “I want you,” she whispers. They’ve gotten closer— she’s leaning on Lucina, bare skin of their shoulders pressed together. “Please, Lucina.”  
  
“What do you want?” Lucina asks, her voice husky.   
  
“Kiss me,” Azura says.   
  
Lucina reaches up and pushes the damp weight of Azura’s hair off her face, rests a hand on Azura’s cheek. She complies, tilting Azura’s chin up and pressing their lips together. Azura’s breath leaves her lungs, and rushes back when their lips part, leaving her reeling, her mind swirling like the water’s surface when they move in the bath.  
  
“Like that?” Lucina asks.  
  
Azura nods. “Please,” she whispers. “Again.”  
  
And so they kiss again, again, until Azura finds herself on Lucina’s lap, pressed against her skin as if glued together by the water, until Lucina’s arms are around her just like Azura’s imagination pictured, her hands on Azura’s waist, her lips on Azura’s neck. Azura feels hot, hotter even than the steam around them, as Lucina’s hands press into the knots in her back and her mouth leaves kisses on her neck and jaw. Azura feels Lucina’s cock pressing awkwardly against her thigh and she reaches down to attend to it, but Lucina catches her wrist.  
  
“Don’t worry about that,” Lucina says, her voice rolling across Azura’s ear. “Here, let’s…”  
  
They shift. The water sloshes. Azura shakes the stars from her eyes as Lucina boosts her onto the edge of the bath, until it’s just her knees in the water. The steam curls off her skin, and yet she still burns, like the place has turned into the hottest of saunas. Lucina kneels, a hand on each of Azura’s knees. She parts her legs with ease; as if Azura would resist at this point.  
  
“You want me, correct?” Lucina asks. Her voice sounds like velvet to Azura’s state, heated and hypersensitive.   
  
Azura nods. “Please,” she whimpers. “Please, your— your _cock_ —“  
  
“Don’t push yourself,” Lucina says. “It may be too much for you right at first. We’ll work up to it.”  
  
“You’re joking,” Azura whines. “You’re just going to leave me here? I thought you were supposed to be a kind and just king.”  
  
Lucina chuckles. “I never said anything about that,” she says. “Just hold still… and please, tell me if you don’t like it, at any point. Promise me.”  
  
“I promise,” Azura says. “I promise. Now please—“  
  
“Don’t worry,” Lucina promises. She leans down, pulls herself between Azura’s legs. Azura feels her lips on her stomach, soft and almost too soft for what Azura wants. Is it the pain she wants? She’s not sure anymore. But Lucina doesn’t give her pain— she gives her kisses, slowly down her stomach to her navel, further down, down, over the soft hairs, slicked down with the bathwater, covering her mound. Lucina kisses that, too, and feels Azura tremble from the anticipation. Her hands grip the rim of the bath. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Lucina opens her mouth and tests the waters with a languid, easy lick up her slit.  
  
Azura shivers, her breath hitching at the unfamiliar sensation. Lucina takes it as a good sign, because she does it again, deeper, pushing through her sodden folds and ending with her tongue on her clit, slowly teasing it out of its hiding place. Azura feels moans, reedy and weak at first, start to fall from her lips, and they grow louder, louder as Lucina goes faster, deeper. Shivers of blinding pleasure roll through her body. She feels her muscles shake, her toes curling and hands digging into the tile as Lucina continues, and Azura wants to form words— telling her how good it feels, to keep at that spot, but all eloquence falls apart at every wave. Her moans echo through the bathing chamber, bouncing off the tiled walls, and Azura can’t even bring herself to care how loud she’s being.  
  
Lucina chuckles. She sticks two of her fingers into her mouth and coats them with saliva, then uses them to fill the space her tongue left. They slide in easily, rubbing Azura’s inner walls and giving her a new kind of sensation. Azura groans, shivers, even as Lucina shifts back up to touch her, and kiss her neck again.  
  
“Does it feel good?” she purrs. “Do you like that, Azura?”  
  
Azura loses the ability to think. She moans, her hands white-knuckled around the rim of the bath. Half-words fall out of her mouth— parts of _Lucina_ and _yes_ and _please_ and _more_ , lost in the waves of pleasure Lucina’s giving her. She shivers, pants, moans into Lucina’s lips when Lucina kisses her again.  
  
“Your sounds are so beautiful,” Lucina croons, kissing her neck. “It’s like you’re singing for me. Do you want me to make you sing more, Azura? Do you like how it feels?”  
  
“Aah… _please_ …” Azura finally moans out.   
  
Lucina chuckles, and kisses by her ear. “Just be patient,” she promises. “And I’ll _really_ make you sing.”  
  
Azura shivers, moans in delight. Lucina sinks back into the bath, pulls her fingers out and puts her mouth back to work. Her hands grip Azura’s thighs. Azura’s moans stop feeling like vibrations in her throat and instead like inevitabilities, sounds she makes when Lucina licks just right, that fill the bathing chamber and bounce off the tiled walls. Azura doesn’t care who hears— doesn’t care about anything beyond trembling, arching her back, curling her toes, gripping the rim of the bath for purchase that doesn’t come.   
  
With every moment that passes, the pleasure builds, builds, leading towards an apex that Azura can’t see, blind to all rational thought. So it’s only when Lucina’s lips close around her clit and she stars sucking, gently and then harder, harder, that Azura’s vision goes white and she shakes, pleasure rolling through her in crashing waves, once, twice, for a time that seems at once like ages and mere moments. And then it all fades, and Lucina’s removed her mouth from Azura’s folds, and boosted herself up onto the floor next to Azura. Azura trembles with residual pleasure as Lucina pulls her into her arms, warm and welcoming.  
  
“How was that?” she asks Azura, when Azura blinks hazily at Lucina.   
  
Azura finds her voice. “Good,” she says. “Really… _really_ good.”  
  
“It didn’t hurt?” Lucina asks.  
  
“Not a bit,” Azura realizes, which is strange in and of itself. “It felt good.”  
  
“I’m glad,” Lucina says. “I’m a bit rusty at oral, but it’s good to see my skills haven’t deteriorated that much.”  
  
Azura nods acknowledgement. She shifts a little, trying to resituate herself in Lucina’s arms. “I didn’t know sex could feel so good,” she says. “Is that… what happens?”  
  
“Ideally,” Lucina says. “It’s not _supposed_ to hurt, Azura. It’s supposed to feel good.”  
  
Azura considers this. She rests her head on Lucina’s chest. “I didn’t know,” she says. “If I knew it could feel this good, maybe I’d have asked you sooner.”  
  
“You can ask me anytime you want, Azura,” Lucina says. “May I kiss you?”  
  
Azura looks up. Lucina’s smiling, soft and warm, her hair still wet from the bath. Azura nods, and Lucina complies. This, Azura decides, is definitely something she could get used to. She feels Lucina's lips, and doesn't think about the night before, or about what awaits her in the rest of the day.

**Author's Note:**

> yell at me on twitter @detectiveryanz or follow for memes, video games, or just to get to know the sad little man behind the curtain.
> 
> want me to write a particular ship or just beta/edit your fic? email ryanzman17@gmail.com to discuss throwing money at me to get what you want. alternately, chuck a few quarters my way at /A3252NPV over on ko-fi to keep getting that sweet sweet gay shit.


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